To all ICU nurses;
How much training did you recieve before you were expected to be able to safely care for a patient with a balloon pump? I work in a community hospital that has decided to be the premier community hospital that will be using the balloon as a "bridge" to stablize our patients and ready them for transfer to a tertiary care center. We are a young staff in terms of critical care experience and none of us has ever worked with a pump. We are also extemely short staffed. Our unit is often staffed with two RN's, one who may only have been in ICU for less than six months. We have seven beds open but often must hold the census due to staffing issues. Now they want to intrduce the balloon pump. So far the training has consisted of one eight hour class..some of us were not privelged enough to even finish the class because we were expected to work. We also had a two hour mock insertion with the sales rep. I do not feel this is adequate. Am i being unrealistic to think that we we need more training??