Help new ICU nurse

[mrmike]

As a new nurse starting in a surgical trauma intensive care unit, what are some drugs I should become more familiar with and review.

[meandragonbrett]

All of your vasoactives, various sedation agents, antibiotics, etc. check out icufaqs.org for lots of ICU info.

[mrmike]

thanks

[semiller36545]

What is your job like ? For instance, how many pts do you care for, what type dx,etc. It just sounds like it would be really exciting.

[Christie RN2006]

Antibiotics such as flagyl, vanco, zosyn, etc are used a lot! Also know different sedation drugs such as ativan, haldol, diprivan, etc and how to titrate them. We also use a lot of cardiac meds such as cardene, nitro, levophed, neosynepherine, dopamine, etc. Know how to titrate those too, and what your facilities policy is on doing vitals while patients are on those meds. For example in my facility, every time we titrate a cardiac med, we have to do vitals every 15 minutes for at least an hour.