New to Cath Lab

[ndrn]

Hello All,

I am a RN with 5 years of experience at a Critical Access Hospital. I still work on the Med/Surg floor and have 3 years of experience in our small ICU/Telemetry unit. I was offered a position in a larger Cath Lab and have accepted it, but am now starting to panic that I don’t have enough experience to make it in the Cath Lab.

I did tell them during my interview that this is a small ICU and that we only stabilized cardiac patients and sent them out should they be experiencing a cardiac event. This ICU sees a lot of everything from infants to geriatrics and we often do not keep intubated or very unstable patients. I have experience in reading telemetry and ekgs, but am no expert, nor do we monitor more than CVP and Arterial Line BPs (no cardiac output, IABP, etc).

Would it be completely crazy to contact my Cath Lab manager and just make sure that they are aware of my limitations/lack of knowledge? I do not want to give the impression that I have “big” ICU experience when I do not.

Thanks in advance.

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

See previous cath lab posts in our Cardiac forum: https://allnurses.com/cardiac-c4/

[ndrn]

Thank you!!

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

Moved to the Cardiac Nursing forum

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

See Dianah,ADN post here

[Wedgepressure, ADN, EMT-B]

Hey there,  I'm a cath lab nurse with about a year of experience.  I went in as a new grad and did fine, literally had 3 months on cardiac PCU experience then jumped right in.   It's all about how much you really want it.  If you go in eager to learn everything it's a ton of fun! But if your not studying regularly in your off time it may be more difficult. I truly love the CCL, it doesn't even feel like work.  It's just fun. Best of luck!