MICU/SICU to ICU w/ Cardiac Patients

[Reno1978, BSN, RN]

For the past year I've worked at a pretty large facility with 3 ICUs that were compartmentalized with one ICU focusing on cardiac, one focusing on trauma, and one focusing on medical/surgical ICU patients. I worked in their MICU/SICU for a year. I'm used to having patients with sepsis, respiratory failure, strokes, and a variety of surgical patients in the ICU I worked in.

I just moved back to my hometown and I'm going to be working in a smaller facility that has a 16 bed ICU that includes cardiac patients. They do open hearts here, and I'm just curious if there are any helpful hints that those of you with great cardiac intensive care experience have to give me. I'm also curious about how long I should expect to get oriented to hearts, considering I already have ICU experience, but no experience with hearts.

Has anyone made the transition from MICU/SICU to an ICU that handles cardiac ICU patients, or have any of you trained ICU nurses without cardiac experience? I'd love to hear your stories.

I don't start until the 19th, so I thought I'd brush up on some suggested materials!!