Neuro Integrated Care Unit vs Intensive Care Unit

[hiddencatRN]

I posted this on the Neurological Nursing forum, but haven't gotten any responses there.

How common is it to see a neuro integrated care unit vs an intensive care unit? Is that a relatively new way of organizing a neuro unit or has this been going on for a while? I have an interview in a neuro icu and assumed it was the "intensive" i but it's an integrated care unit, which I'd never heard of before but sounds really interesting.

[hiddencatRN, BSN, RN]

I worked Neuro ICU back in the day. I prefer unresponsive neuro patients to be honest and wouldn't like that set up. Step down level neuro pts are VERY difficult to take care of IME and besides pregnant women and drunks, my absolute least favorite. Be sure you like all levels of neuro patients before committing.

I imagine they can be pretty combative and prone to pulling out lines and drains, right?

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

Impulsive, more than combative, although sometimes that too. Just hard hard hard to deal with. Their families too, b/c as hard as it is to see someone you love hurt or ill, imagine seeing them looking "ok" for all intents and purposes, but having major personality changes. Families have it rough and take it out on nurses.

I will never forget batboy. He was a CHI pt I took care of for weeks. We called him that b/c at the time, the batman movie (the 1st one, Micheal Keaton, lol) had just come out and was big in the theaters. Someone didn't like our pt and beat the crapola out of him with a baseball bat. The head injury did nothing to improve his apparently already unpleasant personality and by the time he left (his own family didn't want to take him home, they didn't like him either), we all wanted to finish the job. One afternoon he was standing on his bed, pulling stool out his rectum, flinging it and urinating on everyone that tried to get close to him. Security didn't have tazers back then, lol. We also had a lot of shaken baby syndrome victims, and fetal ETOH syndrome kids, and had to deal with those parents too. Not a pleasant situation. Nope, I prefer them unresponsive.

[GHGoonette, BSN, RN]

Impulsive, more than combative, although sometimes that too. Just hard hard hard to deal with. Their families too, b/c as hard as it is to see someone you love hurt or ill, imagine seeing them looking "ok" for all intents and purposes, but having major personality changes. Families have it rough and take it out on nurses.

I will never forget batboy. He was a CHI pt I took care of for weeks. We called him that b/c at the time, the batman movie (the 1st one, Micheal Keaton, lol) had just come out and was big in the theaters. Someone didn't like our pt and beat the crapola out of him with a baseball bat. The head injury did nothing to improve his apparently already unpleasant personality and by the time he left (his own family didn't want to take him home, they didn't like him either), we all wanted to finish the job. One afternoon he was standing on his bed, pulling stool out his rectum, flinging it and urinating on everyone that tried to get close to him. Security didn't have tazers back then, lol. We also had a lot of shaken baby syndrome victims, and fetal ETOH syndrome kids, and had to deal with those parents too. Not a pleasant situation. Nope, I prefer them unresponsive.

Oh my goodness yes! I had one like that-at least mine didn't do the urinating bit! Takes a LOT of patience to cope with them.

On the other hand, nursing a little boy who was comatose for something like 6 weeks, (I forget how the got his head injury), then watch him emerge from that coma-practically from one day to the next!-ranks right up there with my favorite "miracles". Mind you, he only stayed a few more days for observation before they moved him out to Paediatrics; he was getting to be too much of a handful :)

[hiddencatRN, BSN, RN]

It does seem challenging. I think I've heard that neuro nurses are a high injury group. I think I like the idea of being trained in multiple levels of care though, poo flinging aside.