GENERAL ACUTE CARE

I've been a psych nurse for so long I'm not sure but I'll take a stab at it.

There are several specialty areas in most larger hospitals that require their nurses to have added experience and training. Theres Intensive Care (ICU), Cardiac Care (CCU), Diabetes Care (DCU) and so on.  Smaller hospitals may combine some of these to the same floors. Acute Care is everything that does not neatly fall into one of the specialty areas,. This may include patients with acute symptoms but no hard diagnosis, They may be surgery patients. or patient's under observation for whatever reason.

Many people will state that one should have 1-2 years in acute med-surge, before training in a specialty. This gives them time to hone their nursing skills and instincts, It is not however the Holy Grail of nursing. Many of us start out  in specialty areas LDRP (Labor, delivery, recovery and post partum ) for my self . And even though one might be skeptical, the skills I learned there helped me to become a pretty decent psych nurse. 

I hope I dida good job explaining this.

Hppy