New Grad Residence Advice

calivianya, BSN, RN · Jun 8, 2014

My advice on taking a residency is not to do it, but it's a little late for that one.

The good thing about residency is that they know you are new - that is why you are in a residency where they will teach you. They don't expect you to know much. Most of your residency material should be a review for you anyway - med/surg class in nursing school went more in-depth on critical care topics than you realize, or at least mine did. My residency classes were basically med/surg class rehashed, so basically they were a total waste of time that got me tricked in to signing an expensive contract because I thought I was actually going to learn something valuable. In reality, I was just inconvenienced by having to miss time with my preceptor on the unit because I was in class for the first four hours of her shift some days. The only things taught in residency that I didn't have much experience with beforehand were mostly cardiac topics, so I would recommend looking over hemodynamic monitoring, vasoactive drips, etc. if you feel like you really need to review something. Look over 12-lead interpretation, too - you will be ahead of the game if you know which leads you will see ST elevation in for MIs in different areas of the heart.

if133 · Jun 9, 2014

Thank you for your advice, I will definitely go over hemodynamic, 12 lead and rest of the topic regarding cardiac. I just don't want to keep wasting my time knowing that there is a lot of info during my career as RN that I need Lear about ICU. :).

Thanks again.