Floated to the Tele, forgot how hard it was!

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in floor to ICU.

I have been in ICU for a while but have a Tele background. Actually before moving to ICU I was charge nurse so I haven't done floor nursing for quite a while.

Geez, I forgot how difficult it was with 5-6 patients. I was totally overwhelmed at first trying to formulate my plan for the day! Too many "I really need to do this first" thoughts. Not having the monitor at the bedside and my vitals immediately at my disposal was hard. I eventually settled down and managed to get everything done but my feet hurt and I was tired and ready to go home. lol.

ICU can be difficult at times especially when you have a patient that is circling the drain. I have had many busy days in ICU. When you are a floor nurse, sometimes you may think " they only have 2 patients! How hard can it be?" I learned that lesson quickly. However, going back to the floor reminded me of the different kind of "busy" you experience. I am grateful that I had my little reminder of the respect I have for floor nurses and how much they actually juggle!

So, thank you floor nurses for all you do! :yeah:

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Interesting! I am a student- just 2 qtrs left to go. Next qtr we are expected to take a full load of 5 and a lot of us are really panicked about it. It is made even more challenging because we will just be learning the charting system, cannot pull narcs on our own, and must have supervision for all IV meds. We are only going to have ten clinical days to master the 5 patient load and prove ourselves "worthy". Yikes!

Thanks for sharing!

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Specializes in ICU.

I did med-surg tele float for 4 months as a new grad and then became an ICU nurse. They are very different to me. And I would never go back to floor nursing. I have the utmost respect for them. It's just not for me. I have had super busy days and nights in ICU. But it was the busy I like. They busy where you are using your critical care skills. Where you are aiming to figure out what is wrong with a patient and how to turn that around. I love that busy.

Tele and med surg for me felt like being a med pusher. I barely knew their diagnosis and made sure they got their meds and proper treatments. But i like to really know the patient inside out.

Also, being ICu floated to a tele floor, you still feel the need to do a head to toe assessment on all 5-6 patients and check on them every 15 min...... even if they are not ICu level. That's another reason why ICU nurses have such a hard time in tele!

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I work on a med-surg tele floor since I've became a nurse two years ago. I loved it at first, but now it's becoming a bit mundane and I feel like an ICU job would better suit me. At times when I working the floor I feel more like a babysitter than a nurse.

The only thing that scares me away from the ICU would be feeling "inadequate" again after finally becoming comfortable with telemetry nursing. Oh and I really don't like seeing upset family memebers, which I'm sure there's more off down on ICU.

Both have there ups and downs I guess.

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Specializes in floor to ICU.
The only thing that scares me away from the ICU would be feeling "inadequate" again after finally becoming comfortable with telemetry nursing.

This is exactly why I did it. Needed to challenge myself. Haven't been many occasions where I felt inadequate. I mean, you don't know what you don't know. It is a learning process and I am a work in progress. ;)

If you are feeling stagnant, I would challenge you to try something different- out of your comfort zone. You'd be surprised. It is a whole different world in ICU but it is awesome.

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Next qtr we are expected to take a full load of 5 and a lot of us are really panicked about it. It is made even more challenging because we will just be learning the charting system, cannot pull narcs on our own, and must have supervision for all IV meds. We are only going to have ten clinical days to master the 5 patient load and prove ourselves "worthy".

That is the way to do it. I've met BSN graduates who only had 2 max. Scary.

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Specializes in LTC, med/surg, hospice.

I've never done tele but I work on a general med unit and I'm so burnt out. Even though we are busy throughout the night, I'm bored with it. It's just not my niche and I gave it 2 years.

I don't even get the chance to float to other floors or the unit because I'm always charge.

Thanks for the floor appreciation. I always enjoy the ICU nurses that float to our floor.

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