ED to PACU? Looking for less stress

[kitten0509]

Please see my previous post for more details. Long story short, I'm an RN of 12+ years experience, most recently 4+ years in ED of level 1 trauma center. I'm burnt out after the last year, working day/night rotation (every two weeks) with two young school age kids at home. Looking for a change, something less stressful that leaves me with less "fight or flight" response. I applied for a 20 hour evening PACU position. Thoughts on whether or not this will be a good transition, or just a new source of stress? Thanks in advance!

 

 

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

The stress won’t necessarily go away, but it will be different. What type of setting is the PACU position? I’d guess hospital based since it’s evening shift. What type of hospital? What types of surgeries? Much like the ER, the focus is on getting these patients from the OR to ready to go to the nursing unit. Being on evening shift, it’s likely these won’t be so much planned elective surgeries, particularly towards the end of the day. Will you be taking patients in need of critical care beds? Will you be the code bed when the ICUs are full? That’s been happening frequently in my PACU with COVID patients not being ready to move out of ICU as more and more come in. Do you have a critical care background? What does the orientation look like? Will you be the only PACU nurse for some or all of your shift? If you aren’t the only nurse, does the other nurse have a decent amount of PACU experience?

[kitten0509]

All excellent questions! the PACU is in another level 1 trauma center, so similar to the one I work in now, thought I'd be going from the city to the community- still.a teaching hospital though. There would definitely be other nurses working. I'm assuming it does take ICU overflow with the covid situation, but I don't think its like the ED where I could have 2 or 3 ICU patients with no beds in sight, but traumas, cardiac arrests, strokes, chest pains, etc are still coming in on top of that. That's what it getting me- the unpredictability and the constant influx of cases. I only have critical care experience to the degree that we see in the ED, I've never worked inside the ICU- although I did precept there so I'm familiar with how they run. Does this help?

[speedynurse, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

I know this is an old post, but I worked in the ER for years and work in Pre-op/PACU now. There is some stress but NOTHING like the ER. I actually enjoy it more the longer I do it. It’s a very different culture then the ER so be prepared for that. Patients are generally so much more appreciative. The biggest thing for me was getting used to the different mindset and anesthesia and surgeons….for the most part though, once you get used to that, then things get easier. I have actually begun to settle in and enjoy learning from the different disciplines (anesthesia, surgeons, etc)….