Most Common Patient Diagnoses

[beauty912]

Hello Everyone,

I'm a recent grad looking to go into med/surg nursing. I would like to know which conditions or illnesses seem to be the most common on a general med/surg unit. I ask because I'd like to know what to expect to see frequently, and I'd also like to also brush up on these conditions in my books so that I could at the very least have some in depth knowledge about them. I know that diabetes and CAD are two biggies from clinical experience. Any others?? Thank you all in advance. I would really appreciate any feedback. ?

[carluvscats]

I work on a straight medical floor, so the only post-surg pts we get are ones who have had less invasive procedures ~ I&D's, scopes, biopsies, that kind of thing. But I'll answer you the best I can. We get a lot of pneumonia, COPD, sepsis, UTI, any "unexplained" pain or suspected infection, cellulitis, detox pts, renal failure, falls, dehydration...diabetes as you said. Many are isolation pts ~ MRSA/VRE/c-diff with an occasional TB as well. Some of the older folks have heart histories, of course, so they are on telemetry sometimes.

Hope this helps. Good luck to you in your future career! :)

[carluvscats]

Forgot to add hepatic encephalopathy to the list.... that seems to be a common one as well.

[BonnieSc]

Many different kinds of patients have renal and diabetic co-morbidities... they're really good conditions to know about. We see tons of gyne, mastectomies, bowel surgeries, non-surgical small bowel obstructions.

[beauty912]

Thank you both for your posts! I really appreciate your responses. This really helps a lot!

[smkiya, BSN, RN]

I work Telemetry. We primarily see CHF exacerbation, Afib w/RVR, Chest pain (pre-cath/post cath), syncope. Those are the 4 that I can be sure that I'll have when I go to work. During the week my unit gets bombarded with post-caths (we do interventions and CABG's at my hospital), so some of our post-caths turn in to pre-CABG. We also get a lot of s/p pacer or AICD and ablations.

But we do get everything else too, or someone with the above and a secondary diagnosis (uncontrolled Diabetes and COPD exacerbation are biggies).

[Ellekat]

I work surgical, ortho and peds. Most of our pediatric patients are respiratory. We occasionally have a tonsilectomy that the physician wants to have watched overnight or an appendectomy, and a fair number of viral patients that need supportive care (usually for Dehydration). Ortho is mainly ORIF or Total hip replacements, total knee replacements. There is the occasional broken wrist, ankle, or shoulder. It is rare for us to have a younger person (under forty) stay overnight. Most rotator cuff repairs seem to be going home now. We see a lot of various abdominal surgeries-lap choles, lap appendectomies, hernia repairs, bowel resections. An occasional Nissan. Also I&D's of boils, abscesses and the like. TURPS, treatment of kidney stones (a variety of possible procedures with that). One of our surgeons does Lap Bands. We get most of the hysterectomies, Women's Services gets most of the other OB-related surgeries. We get masectomies. And we get the amputations (usually diabetics), the drunks with lacerations, the motor vehicle accidents who are in for observation, anyone with suspected head injury. Supportive care-insertion of long-term IV access, PEGs, etc-may come to the floor if the patient is unstable or has a chronic condition that must be treated medically at the same time. We also give outpatient IV antibiotics and blood, outpatient wound care, weekend shots, etc.

[LouisVRN, RN]

This might be regional as well. I work on an med/surg/ortho so we get a lot of falls s/p ORIFs, appys and choles are big, we also have quite a few plastics, hernia repairs, bowel obstructions. We don't get very many respiratory problem or diabetes etc as there is a purely medical floor as well. If you find a hospital you are interested talk to the nurse manager about the population they see.

[beauty912]

Thank you so much everyone. I was recently hired into a med/ surg position, and I did receive from them a list of the common conditions seen on the unit as well. Thank you all so much for your posts. With everything combined, I have a really good idea of what types of conditions to expect. I really appreciate all of your responses!

[OhBoy123]

Abdominal pain- of unknown etiology.

[roma4204, BSN, RN]

AMS - Altered mental status

[evilolive, BSN, RN]

COPD exacerbation, acute renal failure, sepsis, UTI, pneumonia, syncope, anemia, intractable back pain, intractable abdominal pain, etc. etc.