New grad in ICU

[joey1979pa]

Hi all, I've always come here for information and now I just want to see if anyone else had the experience Im having.

I just graduated a few months ago and wasn't sure of the area I should be in. I decided to "challange" myself by going straight to the cardiac surgical ICU. Anyway after 3 months and good reviews that were done bi weekly I found that I hated recieving the post - open heart patients the floor specializes in. I hated untangling the (hundreds it felt like) lines and zeroing the transducers and all under the watchful eye of the cardiothoracic surgeon/PAs/ OR nurses...Hated it.

I went to my manager who told me to hang tough but ultimately decided to try med surg....Will I hate med surg too? Im scared and love advice from other nurses with experience. I know I will have more patients in med surg but I really hated recieving the fresh hearts from the OR. I don't know where Im supposed to be, Im just having a hard time finding my place.

Thanks for reading!

[southernbelle08]

Wow!

I know at the hospital I work at, you cannot take a fresh open heart surgery patient unless you've had over a year experience in ICU. I don't know if that is the ICU's rule or the rule of our surgeons. In any event, new grads in ICU never do that.

As for Med-Surg. I did almost a year of Med-Surg after almost a year in Oncology. For me, I liked it because I did like seeing patients get well and go home. I might have them a couple shifts and then they'd be gone home and doing fine. In Oncology, unfortunately, that didn't happen near as often. I also liked the variety of things I saw in Med-Surg and I liked that it provided me a lot of opportunity to get good at my skills. In Oncology, I rarely started IVs. We typically dealt with PICC lines, Central Lines, or Port-a-caths. I was great with those things, but ask me to start an IV and I had a difficult time! That was one skill I got really good at when working Med-Surg.

For me, I never wanted to work Med-Surg, and always wanted to work NICU or Nursery. I was told I'd never find a job in either. I did get a job in Nursery back in December and I love it. I know this is what I was meant to do. So I didn't dislike my Med-Surg time, but I knew that is not where I ultimately wanted to end up. The experience I got there was invaluable though, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.