Is post surgical the same as medical/surgical?

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I just got an internship and I'm super excited. They said I would be in a post-surgical unit. Is that the same as medical/surgical - basically the unit where everything goes, haha.

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Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.

My best guess is that it would be PACU (surgical recovery).

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Don't exactly know, and this is with 30 plus years experience. It could be PACU, post anesthesia care unit? It could be a surgical floor, not a med/surg mix unit, where surgical patients go after PACU?

You will be exposed to a lot of new stuff where ever you work. Don't feel dumb to ask the "dumb" obvious questions like "I'm not exactly sure what a post surgical unit is?"

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No, med/surg is general medical problems while a post surgical unit is specifically for recovering surgical patients unless they are Ortho. (We have a separate ortho floor, you might not) The surgical floor takes lots of bowel resections, amputations, general surgery stuff. They come there after leaving PACU- which is more focused on immediate and short term reviving/monitoring of patients from anesthesia and determining pain control. You will see a variety of ages on a surgical floor and many, many PCA's.

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Don't exactly know, and this is with 30 plus years experience. It could be PACU, post anesthesia care unit? It could be a surgical floor, not a med/surg mix unit, where surgical patients go after PACU?

You will be exposed to a lot of new stuff where ever you work. Don't feel dumb to ask the "dumb" obvious questions like "I'm not exactly sure what a post surgical unit is?"

Haha, thanks. I did feel dumb, like something I should know, but I guess I should get used to that and ask those dumb questions.

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Surgical is better than med-surge :yeah:. I think it's a good place to start as an Rn because you get a taste of med-surge (trachs, wound care, peg tubes, etc.), but it is mostly pain control and watching for post-surgical complications.

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Specializes in MS, LTC, Post Op.

I worked a post op floor. We got back everything from pacu that wasn't an ortho surgery. We had A LOT of gastric bypass patients.

We also got our fair share of med/surg patients.

It was a fun unit to work, I really enjoyed it.

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