How long does it take to qualify as an icu nurse?

Published

Specializes in medical.

I potentially have an ICU job offer (nursing cohort...just waiting to hear which ICU it'll be.)

Does anyone know how long it takes to complete the necessary post-grad courses to be classed as a qualified critical care nurse?

Ultimately I want to be a NICU Nurse. At first I was hoping to go straight into this, however I'm an Adult Nurse with no critical care experience, and that hasn't worked in my favour in previous neonatal applications.

I'm hoping that qualifying as an ICU nurse would open more doors for me rather than going straight to the neonatal route (it'd be great to work in PICU, and I'd love to work abroad and can't help but think having an ICU qualification would make both easier?).

I'm just curious as to how long it'll be before I'll have enough ICU experience to make to transition to NICU or to PICU.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Advanced Practice, surgery.

If your an adult nurse working in PICU or NICU is going to be difficult, most jobs will ask for you to be a registered children's nurse (picu) or midwife.

As far as adult critical care, it depends on where you work. My unit has in house accredited training for new starters which takes 6 months. Others may be different but it won't help the transition to paediatrics. If you want PICU, I would suggest you look at a training as a registered children's nurse.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in medical.

Thank you for your reply. That's a stinker. I was hoping PICUs would welcome ICU Nurses and let them do the branch conversion course. I know NICUs accept adult nurse applicants with critical care experience, there were plenty when I qualified but these days they are few and far between. With few children's nursing posts it's easy to see why. This is why I wanted to go down the ICU route, to help me get into nicu or picu.

Which would have more transferable skills to PICU...being a icu nurse or being a nicu nurse?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Critical Care/NICU.

You can be an adult orchid branch for nicu because of the extensive training and you have to complete a separate nicu qualification. However very rare to find a picu that will take adult trained nurses

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Like Gem said, you can go straight to nicu being adult trained - i work in a nnu, and lots of our nurses are adult trained. the unit will provide the training for to work in IC

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in medical.

Thank you for your advice :nurse: It's so great that nicu welcome adult nurses.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion