Duties of an ICU nurse?

[northmississippi]

How does the duties of an ICU nurse differ from that of a staff nurse working on a general medsurg floor of a hospital? What should a nurse wanting to work in icu be studying up on?

[LoveMyBugs, BSN, CNA, RN]

What do you mean by differ?

What type of ICU?

Is this homework?

Pts in the ICU are critical and many times the ICU nurse only has one pt.

Sometimes the pts are so critical they require 2-3 nurses to monitor them

Big difference from the floor to the ICU most pts are intubated in the ICU

Look up ECMO

ICP pressure monitoring

Cardiac drips, surgeries

Multi-system truamas

Sepsis

Stoke

End stage liver

COPD

Anything you see on the floor you can see in the ICU, only more complicated and sicker

[Larry3373]

Patients are sicker and are therefore monitored more closely and using more invasive means. Look up CVP and Arterial lines; common vasopressors (used to control BP) such as levophed, vasopressin, dopamine, neosynephrine, and epinephrine; balloon pump; swan ganz; train of 4 for paralytics; sedation in icu r/t ventilated patients; common indications for intubation and criteria for extubation. These are just to name a few. Surgical or Cardiac ICUs often handle postoperative CABG or transplant patients and trauma patients that require surgery. Medical ICUs handle many types of critical patients such as patients in septic shock, dka, repiratory failure/ARDS, suicide attempts with 72 hour psych hold, etc. There is a ton of info on YouTube and medscape for ICU nurses.

[Larry3373]

I forgot to mention there are many CCRN review books that you can purchase or get from the library that give a comprehensive review of ICU nursing.