New grad going into critical care... ???s

[stephlucasrn2008]

Hi everyone! I just want to thank you for taking the time to read and responde to this post...

I am graduating from nursing school in June and have excepted a position in a medical ICU at a large teaching hospital. The unit takes respiratory failure, pneumonia, sepsis, MODS, renal and liver failure, GI bleeders, overdoses, etc. I thought this would be a good learning experience for my big jump into critical care. I have been a multiskilled health tech on a cardiac unit for the past 3 years. I also have experience in the ER as a tech, for about 6 months. During my 3 years on the cardiac floor, I have monitor tech-ed enough to have killed 1000 trees with all the strips I print. I think after all of that experience and an excellent critical care course with good recommendation from the instructor, I would be fine going right into critical care. However, many nurses I work with are giving me **** about it. I get "WOW! That's setting you up for failure" or "Why would you do a thing like that as a GN?"

However, my grandmother (a former critical care nurse) and a few coworkers who have worked in critical care, have given me their blessings.

Is it really that horrible for a new nurse w/ prior experience to jump right into medical ICU?

I am in no way doubting my choice or my ability. And I will be the first to admit that I am nervous, anxious, and excited about this job. But why such the negativity?

[cardiacRN2006, ADN, RN]

It's hard. But you are not setting yourself up for failure. Sometimes people get miffed over the confidence of new grads.

Having previous health care experience DOES help tremendously. And your attitude will help you more.

Good luck, and you'll do fine. Sounds like a great unit to work on. I love teaching hospitals!

[RNontheroad]

I would never recommend someone who has never worked in an acute care setting, to start out in the ICU. But you have several years experience and are at a great advantage.

I started in a medical-surgical ICU as a new grad and dont regret it for one minute.

Always remain "teachable" (we are ALL students until the day we die) and know when to ask for help and you will be fine.

Good luck!

[CVICURN2003]

I started out in a very high acuity SICU. I love it. I can't imagine any other place to work. You CAN do it. A few words of advice...don't get RN "itis" and act like you know everything (as a somewhat experienced ICU nurse now, I see this all the time), always be open to being taught (I had a nursing student with me the other day who had "already seen" a TEE and did not need to see the HIGH RISK TEE we were doing...hello you can't have seen that many, even if you were a tech (I don't know if she was) I always wanted to be in the middle of everything, I would say "I don't know what to do, but show/tell me" and they did and were usually patient with me and taught me. I did start out work with a great good of experienced nurses who showed me all they could and gave me REALLY sick people to work with and helped me with them to learn. I was the "baby" at 26 and one of only two new grads that year...so I did have some advantages. There will be some nurses that will be very critical and quite frankly (as a more experienced nurse now) I have seen some people that really should have gone to med surg first to hone their assessment, confidence and time management skills, just like "everybody" says. And I have seen some that are great ICU nurses now. You can search this topic and a gazillion threads like this one will come up.

Good luck.

[MommyandRN]

You will be fine. And for many years you will hear the same protests. Mostly your first few months on the unit from nurses who started in med/surg. Even years later when you tell people that you went right into ICU people might question it. You just tell them what a great experience it was and how you didn't want to do anything else. You can do it!

[RNperdiem, RN]

If your hospital offers a comprehensive orientation with classes and a lengthy preceptorship you will do fine if you are motivated. Hopefully you will have experienced coworkers to help you through in the beginning.

When you hear about nurses not liking your decision to go to ICU, remember hospitals have had to change since their day.

Many hospitals once ran the Nursing Education department on a shoestring, if they had one at all.

When there was no shortage, a hospital could simply hire only experienced nurses for specialty units and save on the cost of extensive orientation.

Hospitals have had to change and adapt to survive. Now new grads are getting positions in units. Nursing school doesn't teach these ICU skills to a degree where you would be ready to work, so the hospital does the teaching instead.

I suspect some hospitals have not changed much. A new grad will recieve no extra orientation and will sink or swim.