ICU vs ER career advice

[nrsmom2g1b]

I am currently a float for a hospital in a large city. My goal is to eventually go to school for life Flight. To get in you have to have both ER and ICU experience. I have been a med surg cardiac telemetry nurse for 5 years now and I am currently a close and for the last month in the ER 100% of the time. As of this morning I was just offered a full time position in the ER and then received a call this afternoon with an offer for a full time ICU position. Both are great opportunities with equal pay and the same hours for the same company I currently work for. My question is is it easier for an ICU nurse to transfer to ER or an ER nurse to transfer to ICU? I'm not sure which opportunities to accept. Any opinions are greatly appreciated.

[ldeazy333]

Do you work at RIH? I'm trying so hard to get a job as a new grad nurse in this hospital. I have 1 year experience on the Tele/step down unit at VA in Providence (paid VALOR intern program)...this gave me a lot of experience. Any advice on getting into this hospital is MUCH NEEDED!!!

[RNDude2012]

In my experience, I think it's easier to get into ER after having ICU experience. Plenty of ICU nurses go down to the ED. At my hospital the ER manager will always let ICU nurses cross train in ER if they want. ER nurses sometimes switch to ICU, but I don't see it happening as frequently. I've seen ER nurses who transfer ICU and do just fine though. It's a lot more controlled than ER and a lot of them are happy that they can focus on their 2 patients. ICU nurses are usually viewed as "being able to do it all." Whether or not the stereotype is correct is debatable. Personally, would take ICU for the training. Since it seems that you already float to ER you can always continue floating there to keep your foot in the door and build up hours to become a flight nurse while working in the ICU.

A lot of ER openings state that they usually want 1-2 years of critical care/ER experience. ICU openings usually state that they want 1-2 years of ICU experience. Good luck and let us know which one you choose!

[Creamsoda, ASN, RN]

Id say its probably easier to go from ICU to ER. Especially because most places invest a fair bit of time to give you a solid ICU training. I find the ER will give you training too, but its not as indepth patho wise, and the nature of ER is treat and street so I dont think your foundation will be as strong. In the ICU you should get a good classroom and internship which will give you a solid base and make it easier to transition to ER afterwards and it should be a breeze to be able to handle the codes and traumas and such.

[Guest838984]

ICU would be easier to start with. I work ER and we have some nurses come down from ICU and their knowledge is much more in depth pathophysiologically speaking. Almost nothing would scare you in ER after ICU. Prioritizing would be different but it seems like you would have that skill already since u said you've been floating down there a lot anyways

[nrsmom2g1b]

Thank you all for all the great advice ICU is what I was thinking more for the experience and knowledge of critical patients. It will be hard to leave ER but as mentioned above I can always float back here and there