ICU/CVICU Nursing Experience

CCRNicu22 · Jan 8

I am a trauma ICU nurse! not much experience in CVICU so that would be a big change for me

strawberryicunurse · 2025-03-27T02:30:55Z

Hi! I'm a new grad in a surgical CVICU (as opposed to a medical cardiac ICU). We get patients straight from the OR after procedures like CABGs, valve repairs and replacements, aortic aneurysm repairs, orthotopic heart transplants, new LVADs, ECMO cannulations, Impellas, IABPs, and more. Nearly everyone has undergone a sternotomy. When I get to work, I get report from until like 730 if I'm on dayshift. I read through all my orders, then do full head-to-toe assessments and do safety checks. I make sure there's an ambu bag/working suction at the bedside, check my monitor alarm parameters to make sure I'll be alarmed if blood pressure/HR/O2 saturations get out of acceptable range, check all my drips, and more. Then I write down all my tasks for the day on a timed schedule. Dressing changes, meds, labs, assessments, checking chest tube drain levels, shooting cardiac indexes, blood sugars, etc. My team rounds between 9-11am. This usually includes the ICU attending, cardiac surgeon, nurse, a couple NPs or PAs, and a pharmacist. Sometimes the heart failure team or another department's providers will join rounds if the patient is being co-managed. During rounds is when we all get on the same page about the patient and come up with a plan for the day. This might be goals to extubate, wean off certain drips, add new medications, or even transfer to a lower level of care. Throughout the day, on top of doing all of my scheduled patient care, I am also closely monitoring my patient's vitals and titrating vasopressors to the lowest amount necessary to be within defined parameters. I am continuously stopping by the providers' workstation to provide updates on my patients' statuses. Outside of care for my own two patients, I also assist other nurses with theirs. Helping with admissions from the OR includes getting patient's on our monitors from anesthesia's portable ones, stabilizing them, running to get meds and other supplies needed. And when I have an admission, at least 2 or 3 other nurses help settle and stabilize my patient with me. Let me know if you had any specific questions I can answer!