New nurse duties in clinical decision unit

[breewilkins]

I will be graduating and my first position is the clinical decision unit at my hospital. I have worked for several years in the ED environment and my most recent job was as an ED tech where I was able to insert IVs, Foleys, EKGs etc. in addition to nursing assistance duties. I also had my senior internship on a stepdown ICU that dealt with CPAP/BiPAP machines, patients on dialysis, insulin and Cardizem drips so I am familiar with critical care settings.. I was hoping this experience would get me a position in the ER or ICU but I was placed in the Clinical Decision Unit and I am a bit unhappy. I feel that I may be bored and not challenged with hard patients. Can some people provide me encouragement and what some of the duties consist of? So far it just seems like you are waiting for patients to be discharged or admitted with not a lot of opportunity for doing lots of nursing skills or critical patients.

[YoutubeTheNP]

Sorry. You're right. It's boring. Most of the Er nurses who get pulled to the cdu unit I work on hate it. But it does help the nurses who are burned out a day to relax and catch their breathe.

[breewilkins]

Thank you for your honesty!!

[YoutubeTheNP]

I will also add that it depends on the size of the cdu. The one I work at has 8 beds, so it's never really crazy. But I know a few other units in other hospitals who have 20+ rooms and those nurses are busy nonstop admitting and discharging.

[SaltySarcasticSally, LPN, RN]

Definitely depends on the hospital. My friend did her precepting in a CDU, she said they never sat once, had codes, numerous nursing skills. But its a large teaching hospital so that may make the difference. I think it would be a good place to start out and then merge to the ER later on.