Med Surg Nurse Role -calgary

[BINAZ]

Hi,

I am an IEN, tentatively has a start date of 2nd sep with Calgary Health region and would be posted in Medical floor/Surgical floor.I am very much interested to know the duties & responsibilities of Alberta RN /GN .I have considerable experience in this area in my country.Any tips would be highly appreciated.

[Fiona59]

Usually you are assigned to a medicine OR surgery unit. It's very rare to float between them. Having said that, if there is a bed shortage you will get the ER overflow, so you get what you get.

Surgery patients are usually fresh post-ops or icu transfers. Tubes, tubes and more tubes is often the case. All sorts of dressings and wound vacs. With any luck most are home within seven days. Many surgeries go home the next day.

Medicine is a mystery to me. All I know is that they have a higher nurse/patient ratio and longer stay patients.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Medicine is a mystery to me. All I know is that they have a higher nurse/patient ratio and longer stay patients.

And at least a six-fold increase in the number of meds they get, a three-fold increase in the amount of personal care they require and multiple comorbidities. They can be a whole lot busier than surgical patients and more physically demanding too.

[Fiona59]

Right on the meds. How can I forget the elderly princess the other month? Her 08 meds filled one page of my printout and she would only take them one at a time and she was on the call bell nonstop.

[linzz]

Although I have never worked in a hospital, I did six months of each in school and three months of pre-grad in medicine and I came to the conclusion that I liked surgery much better. Medicine was very challenging, at least it was for me. So yes, I am agreeing with both janfrn and fiona59.