ICU/CCU Nurse Transitioning to LTC....

sharlynn · Oct 15, 2007

Congratulations on finding a job you like. I got into LTC after a divorce. My ex repaired Nuclear Medicine equipment and managed to find me no matter where I worked. I didn't want the divorce, he did. LTC was the only place I could be sure I wouldn't run into him and it turned out I loved it, too.

Unfortunately, alot of Acute care nurses look down on us. With time, they will realize you know what you are talking about! There is a lot more responsibility on LTC nurses than they realize, because doctor's aren't availablre 24/7.

RNontheroad · Oct 15, 2007

I have no insight into making your transition easier I just wanted you to know that you have my uttmost respect and admiration. Changing careers is never an easy thing to do, and LTC is not easy by any means. (I worked as a CNA for 15 years before going to nursing school. I too have a special place for the elderly.) I think alot of people would not have been willing to make the changes you did in order to stay working. It is very admirable and is the act of someone who has a true love of nursing.

I always hate when one specialty looks down on another. It's very unbecoming of our profession.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Oct 15, 2007

rae. . .as my back was dying i spent my last 4 years of work in nursing homes. i had started my career in nursing homes anyway and always liked it. yes, you do have to deal with people in the acute hospitals sometimes treating you like a dummy. that's because they are at the other end of a telephone line and don't know anything about you. just ignore it. we both know there are some dumbbells working over in the acute hospital. (i worked in the hospitals for many years and was a nursing supervisor and manager.)

what i found was that ltc is a place where you can have a lot of autonomy. as you've already seen, a lot of organization is generally needed. you can provide that. the opportunities are just waiting to grab up because i can guarantee that no one else wants them. pick something that you see needs some improvement and change and go for it. i would let the don in on what you are doing so there are no hurt feelings. in my case, i started weeding out the unnecessary orders in the charts of my patients. it was a big project that took months, but when i was done i had all kinds of old orders d/c'd and made sure that every chart had either a dnr or full code order which was required by the state. nursing homes don't usually do chart checks to see that orders are signed off every shift like they do in the acute hospitals. however, some of the biggest med errors we found in the nursing home were do to orders not being noted off. i started doing regular checks of my patients charts for new doctor's orders. i've mentioned it occasionally on this forum and many people poo-poo it. it only takes 5 or 10 minutes to go through 30 or 40 charts and saves a whole bunch of trouble in the long run. but, i take the position of being a charge nurse seriously and i want to know about every order my patients have. i was right in there during the monthly reconciliations of the mars/tars each month (another big job) to make sure these sheets were done correctly and with as few errors as possible. i made calls to the pharmacy service a number of times to find out how the computer service worked so i could get the corrections done the way i wanted. no one stopped me or said, "hey, what are you doing?" in the end, everyone made comments about how organized things were. since i like working on the computer, i designed pre-printed fax sheets to notify the docs for skin tears and falls, so the other nurses only had to fill in specific details instead of having to write out an entire fax message. and, there was more stuff that i did. i can't just sit around and gab. it's not in my nature.

i'm sure you can find similar things that need to be done. your hospital background will be a big help as well.

good luck!