New Grad Job Offers in ICU versus IMC/Tele: Need Input Please

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me.

Can you share more about your experience with tele and how it prepped you for the CICU? Do you feel as though tele allowed you to practice your assessment skills and critical thinking?

My other fear of going directly into CTICU is that I won't get to practice the art of assessing as much and learning to "catch" things ... it sounds like the exposure to the patient population in the tele/IMC setting helps you develop these skills. One of the things I admired most about my nursing school professors is that they had these amazing assessment stories! Like, "after 9/11 at the pentagon, I caught an internal bleed/peritonitis that the doctor totally missed all the signs and symptoms of and was giving me a hard time about, and I got this guy to CT and surgery before he died of internal injuries."

Please use the quote feature so we know who are responding to.

You are correct that assessment skills are the number one skill that nurses need to learn and apply. Working on a telemetry unit exposed me to most of the problems that the seven body systems can develop.

I also was a star student. I could not nurse my way out of a wet paper bag for two years.

Caught internal bleeding , even following a "negative" CT. Caught a pneumothorax by listening to lung sounds.. two minutes after the attending rounded and charted lungs CTA. Caught necrotizing fasciitis after two specialties rounded, by using my sense of smell.

There's more .. but I won't bore anybody.

[sallyrnrrt, ADN, RN]

Offer #2 cvicu.......for me my choice