New to cardiac nursing!!

[Christiern83]

I have been a nurse for almost 3 years, but will be working my first hospital floor job since becoming a nurse. I will be working on a heart failure floor with med surg overflow. I'm really excited and have been reading up on cardiac diagnoses, meds, interventions, and so on..... I've been getting a little overwhelmed thinking about all of the possible issues I may encounter!!! Does anyone have any suggestions of meds or tests or anything that I should know like the back of my hand? Or any suggestions in general for a newish nurse working in cardiac? Thanks!!

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

I'd look over an ACLS manual for basic rhythms, code drugs, sceneries and a overview of what to do in a code. If your floor does telemetry monitoring, an ACLS manual is a good place to start learning rhythms. Congratulations! I've spent decades in cardiac nursing, and it continues to fascinate me.

[pamiesuejt27]

Definitely become familiar with cardiac arrythmias and the drugs used to treat each. You will want to become familiar with maintenance medications such as beta blockers, ace inhibitors, arbs. Then antiplatelets and anticoagulants, learn the difference between them and what each of them are supposed to treat. It takes a while, but you should have a good foundation coming from med surg. At least you'll have your time management pretty well down pat. icufaqs.com has some great info.