How do you deal with ICU superiority complex?

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I have to float to ICU occasionally and I just don't jive with the put - downs even if they are not said to me directly. I know the put downs exist when the shift leader gives me my assignment and then wispers an aside remark, something to the nurse to her left. How do you deal with this superiority culture of we're ICU and anyone who floats here is a second class citizen? I feel it is hard enough to float, but it is one thing to be thinking should I ask so and so's opinion about my giving this med or should I not because I'll look more like an idiot in his/her eyes? Seriously, total mind trips, I just want to be supported that's all, not given the 'snub.'

We need to appreciate every nurses strengths and weaknesses. i work med-surg, but i do hesitate to be pulled anywhere. I have developed an appreciation for all specialties. there is not one nurse who is better than another. Each specialty has its challenges. ICU/CCU has different knowledge than med-surg. Just like OR/PACU/Oncology/OB/Neuro/ER all have different knowledge. Then there are differences between Hospital, LTC, or Homecare or Hospice. Let's learn from each other and work as a team. Let's appreciate each others strengths and be grateful that there are so many diversities of nursing and there are nurses willing and capable to handle and work in all areas.

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Specializes in ICU.

I find it to be opposite. I dont know if the floor nurses are intimidated by ICU nurses, but I find that whenever I transfer a patient out and take them to the floor, no one talks to me, or looks at me, or thanks me for offering to help get the patient setteled, even though I dont have to. Im nice, I smile, I am in no way mean or rude. They just kind of glare at me. I have found this on most floors that I take patients to.

Cher

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Specializes in Critical Care, ER.
We need to appreciate every nurses strengths and weaknesses. i work med-surg, but i do hesitate to be pulled anywhere. I have developed an appreciation for all specialties. there is not one nurse who is better than another. Each specialty has its challenges. ICU/CCU has different knowledge than med-surg. Just like OR/PACU/Oncology/OB/Neuro/ER all have different knowledge. Then there are differences between Hospital, LTC, or Homecare or Hospice. Let's learn from each other and work as a team. Let's appreciate each others strengths and be grateful that there are so many diversities of nursing and there are nurses willing and capable to handle and work in all areas.

Very well said.

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I had to laugh at this because all my classmates are all going into ICU because they find it so much "easier" than Step-Down or even Med-Surg. Where we are it's two patients, max. in ICU -- ever. They're all hooked up to monitors and in some hospitals you can sit right here and watch them at a regular desk that's yours only!

Med-Surg and Step-Down are super chaotic! Plenty of time you've got high acuity patients there -- some with critical drips and ventilators. You've got 4 patients, sometimes 5, and you're running around like mad making sure everyone's still alive and are getting their meds. Plenty of folks are stable but immobile and need total care.

In one hospital, there is no place for the Med-Surg nurses to sit and chart. They have to steal the patient's tray table and park it in the hall to have a surface to write their documentation on.

And let's not even go to dealing with family -- which ICU nurses actually do less of because visiting is often very limited.

As students we LOVE to go to the ICU because the nurses actually have the time to teach us. In Med-Surg they're super busy just trying to make sure everybody gets their meds -- not to mention all the important assessing, etc., that's required.

If anyone should feel superior, it's the Med-Surg nurses.

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Specializes in Medical Telemetry, LTC,AlF, Skilled care.
I had to laugh at this because all my classmates are all going into ICU because they find it so much "easier" than Step-Down or even Med-Surg. Where we are it's two patients, max. in ICU -- ever. They're all hooked up to monitors and in some hospitals you can sit right here and watch them at a regular desk that's yours only!

Med-Surg and Step-Down are super chaotic! Plenty of time you've got high acuity patients there -- some with critical drips and ventilators. You've got 4 patients, sometimes 5, and you're running around like mad making sure everyone's still alive and are getting their meds. Plenty of folks are stable but immobile and need total care.

In one hospital, there is no place for the Med-Surg nurses to sit and chart. They have to steal the patient's tray table and park it in the hall to have a surface to write their documentation on.

And let's not even go to dealing with family -- which ICU nurses actually do less of because visiting is often very limited.

As students we LOVE to go to the ICU because the nurses actually have the time to teach us. In Med-Surg they're super busy just trying to make sure everybody gets their meds -- not to mention all the important assessing, etc., that's required.

If anyone should feel superior, it's the Med-Surg nurses.

It can seem that ICU isn't that busy because you only have 2 patients but, when both of those patients are crashing at the same time or one of them is 500lbs on 12 diff. IV drips running is incontinent and you have to change him except you don't have any aides on the floor to help and the other nurses are too busy, then you can start to see how stressful and busy it can be. Every unit is hectic just in its own way. Just my opinion

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

There is no "easy" nursing. Your classmates are in for a really big shock, if they are getting into ICU nursing due to "ease". I would hate to be them that first year when reality smacks. These "one or two" patients are a LOT of work, as are their families. Yes, that if right, their families are as much work, if not more, than these patients are. I found ICU very intense, tough and emotionally-draining whenever I floated there. Easy? Never entered my mind---and none of those nurses had over 2 patients, either. When the poo hit the fan, it splattered all over and everyone was running and busting their humps to save lives. I have so much respect for ICU/CCU and MICU nurses, sure do.

Really, I find no superiority complex in our ICU nurses. I am told we OB nurses are a bunch of cliquey you-know-whats. I found this shocking, as I always felt at home w/the group and just don't see it. But then, perspective is everything to the one saying these things. There may be things we do either consciously or not, that give off the impression. Maybe in any "specialized" unit, there is very strong cohesion that is misinterpreted as "superiority" by the others.

But I have long since learned, no area of nursing is "easy" at all. I have a healthy respect for nurses in med-surg, ICU/CCU and ED, having floated to these areas. I also think arrogance is a good cover for fear, in anyone. And in ICU, I found a good reason to fear for the patients, at times. Just speculating here...

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Specializes in Oncology/Haemetology/HIV.
It can seem that ICU isn't that busy because you only have 2 patients but, when both of those patients are crashing at the same time or one of them is 500lbs on 12 diff. IV drips running is incontinent and you have to change him except you don't have any aides on the floor to help and the other nurses are too busy, then you can start to see how stressful and busy it can be.

My patient crashed recently and was in a holding pattern on the med-surg for 8 hours - but of course I had to start the drips on the floor. Then another developed a critical arrhythmia, and needed card drugs started and was also in a holding pattern for the unit for 3 hours. In addition, I had 4 other patients, most incontinent, confused and several over two hundred pounds. Several had lasix. One of my ICU bounds was 325 lbs. As there was an aide for 18 patients, I really had little help.

Both ICU nurses that received my transfers had had lunch that day. I did not eat the entire shift. I received one transfer from the ICU - and that nurse had had lunch. They also left work within 15 minutes of end of shift. I was there for over an extra 60 - sign out sheets are very telling. The direct admit nurse that sent me an admit, also missed lunch and was late leaving.

I am going back to higher level care soon......I was much less stressed there. And since I am expected to start drips on the floor and maintain...might as well be able to only have two.

Ben, the conditions you describe occur routinely on medsurg. Try thinking about what occurs with triple or quadruple the incontinence and weights. Not to mention unrestricted round the clock visitation. I run start/drips "just this once -it's an emergency" pretty regularly these days, because there are no ICU beds. There are no stable patients anymore.

ICU and MS can't be playing this tit for tat game.

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Specializes in Medical Telemetry, LTC,AlF, Skilled care.
My patient crashed recently and was in a holding pattern on the med-surg for 8 hours - but of course I had to start the drips on the floor. Then another developed a critical arrhythmia, and needed card drugs started and was also in a holding pattern for the unit for 3 hours. In addition, I had 4 other patients, most incontinent, confused and several over two hundred pounds. Several had lasix. One of my ICU bounds was 325 lbs. As there was an aide for 18 patients, I really had little help.

Both ICU nurses that received my transfers had had lunch that day. I did not eat the entire shift. I received one transfer from the ICU - and that nurse had had lunch. They also left work within 15 minutes of end of shift. I was there for over an extra 60 - sign out sheets are very telling. The direct admit nurse that sent me an admit, also missed lunch and was late leaving.

I am going back to higher level care soon......I was much less stressed there. And since I am expected to start drips on the floor and maintain...might as well be able to only have two.

Ben, the conditions you describe occur routinely on medsurg. Try thinking about what occurs with triple or quadruple the incontinence and weights. Not to mention unrestricted round the clock visitation. I run start/drips "just this once -it's an emergency" pretty regularly these days, because there are no ICU beds. There are no stable patients anymore.

ICU and MS can't be playing this tit for tat game.

I think you may have misinterpreted my post, I in no way shape or form was putting down MS nurses or ANY nurses. I was simply stating that every floor has its challenges. I apologize I upset you so but playing the little tit for tat game was not the intent of my post.

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Specializes in CCRN, TNCC SRNA.

I work in and ICU and when I occasionaly float to a Med/Surg floor, some of the staff are rude to me because they think what the OP heard, that us ICU nurses tend to think we are better than the rest. That is really not true. I used to think the same way about OR and older nurses, (ones that have been in the field for years, not their age) but not anymore. When we get a float nurse, I am tickled pink because that means we have an extra pair of hands to help us out. But that superior attutide cam stem from any nurse really. As far that med/surg nurse that tried to put me down( at work, not here) because of the fact that I have only two patients. Well I just assumed that she did not understand that my two patients were in more serious condition than the five she had that were able to walk, talk and breathe on their own.

Now I understand why I get the hostile attitude when I call report to a med/surg floor for patient transfer. It's because of how we ICU nurses are seen. Unfortunatley for us, it is a bit unfair because not all of us are like that. I will admit that lucky for me I have worked on a telemetry floor with five patients at a time and sometimes even seven (wow), and that had really enhanced my time management skills, but comparing the amount of patients one has without looking at accuity/severity is like comparing apples and oranges.

No type of nurse is better than the other, and frankly I have high respect for the fact that we as nurses are interested in different types of nursing. I for one could not do L&D nursing, I dont even know why I dont like it, I just dont. But one of my best friends loves it. She hates critical care, but I love it. This is what I mean that we are all specialists in a sense. What would happen if we all wanted to do the same thing?

Edited for addtions and typos

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Specializes in SICU.

I am thinking that the new grads who went to ICU because it's "easy" are in for a very rude awakening.

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Specializes in Staff nurse.

Recently I had to transfer a pt from our med floor to CCU. No problem, great assistance, worked as peers for the patient. The pt. is back on our floor now and doing well. Team work!!

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It is time for the ICU and Med-Sur/Tele nurses to unite. Why is it that all these nurses are expected from time to time to float to other units

and adapt to the environment...much of which is trying to remember how you did it in nursing school..and ER nurses never have to. In fact they complain if they even have to take care of in-house patients in their own environment? (I feel the temperature rising). Honestly, why do ER nurses never have to float?

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