I am currently an adult cardiac progressive care nurse with 3 years of experience and my PCCN. We do 1:4 but we have very high patient turnover between transfers in and out of MICU, people going to open heart, or discharging. It is normal to turn over half of the floor in one day. We have 33 beds and handle all the patients from the cath/ep labs post procedure. If they didn't use a closure device we will pull our own arterial sheaths, and often they will still have integrilin or angiomax still running for a certain amount of time. We get all the ER admits for heart failure and arrhythmias, chest pain, etc. We have patients that are on continuous bipap, we have cardiac gtts-nitro, cardizem, primacor, dobutamine, dopamine, amio, lidocaine etc and can titrate to a certain amount. Ex-nitro can go up to 100mcg before needs ICU transfer. We run our own codes, but an ICU resource nurse or two always will come since they go to any code in the hospital. We also will get the severe sepsis patients at times.
An example of my last shift: 1 patient was running Amio and Lidocaine gtt, another patient was on cardizem that I had to keep titrating since HR and BP were going all over the place, one patient who was severe sepsis lethargic MAP in the 40s when she was admitted to me from ER, I eventually did end up transferring her to ICU after wasn't responsive to fluid challenge, or albumin that dr had ordered me to give, another new Tikosyn start, and a post cath that I sent to the cath lab earlier because he became a STEMI on my shift and later on in the day ended up being a code stroke alert because he had a TIA.
My question is: would I be considered to have critical care experience? I am trying to switch from adult cardiology to pediatric cardiology. On the job application there is a yes or no question asking if you have at least 2 years of critical care experience. I know by AACN's definition PCU is critical care (even if it is the lower end of the critical care spectrum). However, by no means am I trying to pretend like I am an ICU nurse, because I know I am not. I do not use certain medicines like Levophed, we have the art lines that we set up with the femoral arterial sheaths if we can't pull it right away, but that is as much as it gets with invasive monitoring.
I just want to give an honest answer for my job application, that is all. :)
ACCN has a separate certification for progressive care. If it was the same thing, there would only be the CCRN (although if you have the experience and a manager who signs off on it, anyone can take it).
Is it still considering "running your own codes" if nurses from the ICU come? Every ICU I've worked in that "ran their own codes" nobody else came to us... In fact, only in one hospital I've worked at were ICU codes even paged overhead...
You do not say if the job you are applying to is in the same hospital, or hospital system. If it's in the same hospital, I would not worry about it as they will know exactly what unit you currently work on and the patient population of that unit. If it's not the same hospital (even if it's the same system), I would not indicate that your experience is critical care, as you have no idea what their patient populations are like or what they consider to be critical care experience. You have far more to lose by assuming what they want or consider to be critical care experience than you do by indicating no. Typically, as long as there's a field to indicate that you're not a new grad, you should be able to avoid the auto reject.
I guess it depends on the hospital you are applying to. If it's a bigger hospital then if you check yes, they are going to expect you have ventilator experience. Your progressive unit does a lot with gtts.
Is there anyway to include a cover letter?
I do agree that you need to check yes in the box to even be looked at, I would include clarification somehow and put in everything you do on your unit.
I would hate for you to get an interview and then the interviewer be deceived and not give you a chance. Your experience is excellent and I'm sure you would transition in easily.
/username, BSN, RN
526 Posts
ACCN has a separate certification for progressive care. If it was the same thing, there would only be the CCRN (although if you have the experience and a manager who signs off on it, anyone can take it).
Is it still considering "running your own codes" if nurses from the ICU come? Every ICU I've worked in that "ran their own codes" nobody else came to us... In fact, only in one hospital I've worked at were ICU codes even paged overhead...
You do not say if the job you are applying to is in the same hospital, or hospital system. If it's in the same hospital, I would not worry about it as they will know exactly what unit you currently work on and the patient population of that unit. If it's not the same hospital (even if it's the same system), I would not indicate that your experience is critical care, as you have no idea what their patient populations are like or what they consider to be critical care experience. You have far more to lose by assuming what they want or consider to be critical care experience than you do by indicating no. Typically, as long as there's a field to indicate that you're not a new grad, you should be able to avoid the auto reject.