New RN, Hyperbaric Nursing Good Choice?

[Thephoenixrises]

Hi all,

Just wanted to get your opinion on if its wise to go into hyperbaric nursing as a new grad. I only have about 6 months of critical care experience and knew very quickly that the critical care environment was not for me. On top of it all, I have a medical condition that really makes it hard on me and so I thought wound care/hyperbaric nursing would be perfect. The economy is really bad so its hard to get into med surge so for the time being, is this a wise decision?

I feel so disheartened..... and wondering whether my failure in my first attempt at nursing (the 6 months of critical care) is what i'll always be...

[Lapaz]

Hey, Shooter,

I, too, work in critical care and find it frantic some days. It's sometimes a difficult environment to be in, but it's good experience to have, especially if you want to go into HBO, which I, too, have just entered. It is recommended for HBO nursing to have ICU experience for most places.

I am not convinced by what you've said that you want to be in HBO, so check your gut on that. It's a much slower pace, but you get to know patients well, and where I work, we do everything from wound care to case management to billing to TCOMs to running the chambers (monoplace in my case) to using down time to learn more about hyperbarics. If you enjoy learning and being part of hyperbaric growth, you'll love HBO. If you're just looking for a job that isn't critical care and have no great interest in HBO, this might not be the job for you.

I don't know what HBO facility you're looking at, but we sometimes get inpatient clients, some of whom are on vents and drips. You need to be prepared for that possibility.

Hope you make the best choice!

[Biffbradford]

I'm thinking of HBO myself. Plenty of ICU experience, tried dialysis (chronic) but was bored silly (among other things), so that didn't work out. The local HBO unit is always hiring though - that's a red flag.

[Thephoenixrises]

Hi Brian,

I've been doing HBO for about a year now and do critical care HBO. If you really want to get into it, I would consider applying to an HBO job at a Multiplace chamber site rather than a monoplace. Multiplace chambers allow you to "dive" with your patients and its definitely a better experience than treating a ICU patient in a monoplace chamber.

If you are from the west coast, HBO is becoming very popular here so there are a lot of jobs opening up. It originated on the East Coast part of the Navy and is now traveling to the west coast.

Hope this helps..

[elprup, BSN, RN]

Just found this post. Did you go for the hyperbaric job and how was/is it?