different types of ICU

Nicu: neonatal intensive care unit

Sicu: surgical intensive care unit

Micu: medical intensive care unit

I work in a unit that sees both MICU and SICU types, so I know those both well...

MICU - Medical ICU, we see lots of ARDS, sepsis, respiratory distress, ESLD, overdoses just to name a few

SICU - Surgical ICU, we see lots of traumas, post surgical cases such as transplants, TAA/AAA repairs, bowel obstructions, flaps, etc

Neuro ICU - pretty obvious, neuro stuff. Strokes. brain bleeds, etc

CCU - Cardiac ICU, mostly MI's, CABG, etc

MICU- medical ICU- generally illnesses and condidtions

SICU- surgical ICU- mainly post-op and/ or trauma

TICU- trauma ICU

PICU- pediatric ICU- for the kids

NICU- neonatal ICU- for newborns and those under 28 days

CCU- cardiac care unit- for CHF, MIS, etc

At least these are the ones I am familiar with

Many different hospitals have many different terms. Frequently seen are

MICU=Medical ICU

SICU=Surgical ICU

TICU=Trauma ICU or Transplant ICU

NICU=Neuro ICU or Neonatal ICU

PICU=Pediatric ICU

CVICU=Cardiovascular ICU

CCU=Coronary Care Unit

CICU=Cardiac ICU

BICU=Burn ICU

I also know of a facility that has a Digestive Disease ICU

Under the "specialty" tab click on "critical care nursing" and there's a whole forum for each of these different types of ICUs. You can find all the information you could ever want!

They're very interesting!

STICU: shock trauma ICU

SNICU = Surgical Neuro

TTICU = Thoracic Transplant

CV-SICU: cardiovascular surgical (post-op hearts: CABG, valves, heart and heart-lung en bloc transplants, etc...)

glutton4punishment said:

STICU: shock trauma ICU

Never heard that version! Around me, STICU is surgical/trauma.

MommyandRN said:

Never heard that version! Around me, STICU is surgical/trauma.

I had never heard of it either. A nurse I work with worked there in a large hospital in the Houston medical center.

Oh what gruesome things she has seen....

there's 2 ways of deliniating critical care beds , the UK system which looks at dependency / number of organ systems requiring support / invasiveness of ventilation

outside the 2000 bed teaching hospitals you'll generally find that a UK hospital has one ICU (level 3 critical care), one or two High dependency units (level 2 critical care) and then a number of HDU (l2)/ close observation /Level 1 beds either in specific level 1 areas ( e.g. CCU, extended recovery , acute respiratory (NIV) ) or attached to specific specialities - we'll have 2 up to level 2 beds when staffing and procedures are sorted as well as 32 'level 0 ' beds on the tertiary unit i work on...

or the US system which sometimes calls all critical care beds 'ICU' but then has a varietyof acuties present on the unit