Is Telemetry Hard For New Grads?

[luv2shopp85]

Okay I typed up a whole long message and then hit post and it said the server was too busy and deleted it all. That really makes me mad! But anyways...

I was just curious if telemetry is hard for new grads? Is it stressful work? Do you have to be able to read EKG's and all that? I'm graduating in June and I wanted to apply to a specific hospital but they only have new grad positions in pulmonary and telemetry. I'm not sure if telemetry is right for me though. I kind of wanted to just do general med/surg but this hospital doesn't have any openings. I was on the telemetry floor at school for one of my rotations but I was having a lot of personal problems that semester and I really don't remember much of how it was. Is telemetry considered a step down unit? If so, what is it a step down from? Sorry if I sound stupid but I really do not know. I read about horror stories on this message board somewhere about new grads doing telemetry and how much they hated it, it was way too fast paced, how stressful it was, and how they couldn't handle it.

Is it common for new grads to just do general med/surg after graduating? This is what I wanted to do. I've haven't been on an actual med/surg only floor for a clinical rotation. I was on PCU, Oncology & med/surg mixed, and orthopedics & med/surg mixed. Right now I am working on the Oncology & med/surg mixed floor and I really like it. But this hospital where I have my clinical and work at is veryyyy small. We don't even have a peds or OB department. There is oncology & med/surg mixed, orthopedics & med/surg mixed, 3 med surg only floors, ICU/CCU, PCU, telemetry, ER (obviously haha) and 2 psych floors. Each department only has about 20-30 beds.

The hospital where I want to work at is a much bigger hospital. I'm assuming when I see oncology that its oncology specailty and has no med/surg on that floor, right?

I'm just dont know what to do! I figured I couldn't go wrong with med/surg but my dream hospital has no openings on that department. Can everyone give me their thoughts/opinons/comments about this because I'd really love to hear it! I"m really confused about this. :chair:

[suzy253, RN]

I graduated in May and went directly into telemetry....actually a step-down telemetry/med surg floor but everyone on the floor wears heart monitors. We get a special course in EKG interpretation and have to print out our patient's strips once a shift and interpret them. Of course, the docs read and write reports on any EKG's we might do.

You sure will learn a lot. It's a challenge but I love it. I had a wonder preceptor/mentor which helped. Several of my fellow grads went right to telemetry as well.

[luv2shopp85]

I hated learning about EKG's in school and I didn't do so great in that part. Is it a huge part of what you will be doing on a telemetry floor?

[Myxel67]

I started out as a new grad in telemetry. I would not recommend it. It wasn't that it was difficult. I loved interpreting rhythm strips in school and was good at it. However, the floor (48 tele beds) was extremely hectic and we usually had only one CNA on nights. I felt I never had time to practice and learn to be good at IV insertions or NGT insertions. I did learn a lot about cardiac drips, vasoactive drugs, and taking care of CABG and PTCA/PCI pts.

Oh, the monitor techs usually interpreted the rhythm strips, but the RN.s would get together to review interesting strips.

[mom2michael, MSN, RN, NP]

I also work on a Tele floor and I am getting ready to leave....but for many reasons.

Tele is hard, but it's hard in a different kind of way. We have a lot of walkie talkie patients on our floor because we take post caths and post pacers mixed in with the patient that really needs a unit bed, but the unit is full, mixed in with our patients we have for 2 months because they got pneumonia and worsening of their CHF but they are on so many ATB we have to keep them.

On days, we can turn over and entire team of 5 patients very easily, which means admit and discharge your entire team in 1 day. You run from sun up to sun down and you chart whenever you have 2-3 seconds to spare. Nights are hard because unless we have over 20 patients, we only have 1 tech. Patients, despite what the outside world thinks, do not sleep on nights one bit. You have a higher patient load on nights and generally speaking, your patients crash more on nights (or at least my experience).

I had a great preceptor both on nights and on days and I worked on this floor as a tech before I graduated but it's a tough, tough floor to work on.

We have EKG techs that do our EKG's and a doc that is around 24/7 to reach the "hairy" ones for us. We have Tele monitors that watch our floor as well as the rest of the patients in the hospital that might be on tele, but they don't catch everything. 3x a shift we put strips on the chart but you as the RN are still responsible for noticing the "abnormal" of the strip and to notice any changes from previous strips. We had a Tele class though, so that helped.

You don't get a lot of skills though on a Tele floor like you would a M/S floor because we don't generally get patients with NG tubes or feeding tubes. We get the occasional perm. trach patient who might be in a Bi-pap but that is about it. You get a LOT of experience in cardiac meds and drips though as well as tons of ATB experience. We hang a lot of IV meds where I work and you get a lot of exposure to abnormal breath sounds and heart mummers.