New Telemetry Position

I'm finishing up my first year as a nurse in telemetry. It can get quite busy as patients may be more medically heavy in comparison to other medical-surgical units. I'm still working on being better as a nurse. For starters, I would recommend knowing your EKG rhythms and understanding your antihypertensive and diuretic drugs. Doctors don't always write parameters so use your best judgement as to when to hold meds based on patient's condition and/or labs. And ALWAYS: When in doubt, ask your more seasoned nurses. Good luck to you!

Thanks for all of the great advice. I really appreciate it. I am new to the community and I am so glad that I foun such a resource and I pray that this serves as a tool to many nurses. Hopefully this can help our profession grow into a more widely respected profession.

I am a new grad myself, getting ready to start my 6th week on a tele floor. This is what I've learned so far:

Know your cardiac meds-beta blockers, Ca channel blockers, ACE inhibitors, vasodilators, and diuretics. Find out what the parameters are for holding them so when you do your med pass you will know. Each patient can be different.

Know your pt. lab values, especially know how to trend them (the seasoned nurses will always ask what the trend is if you go to them with an abnormal value).

Know the patho of the disease processes and a bit about the common procedures they get (CABG, heart cath, etc.). It takes a lot of time for the critical thinking pieces to fall in place (oh boy does it ever, I have so many DUH moments) but knowing patho is the first step to critical thinking!

Try to stay organized on a paper. Come up with something that works for you or copy someone else's. Find your routine and try to stick with it *That's easier said than done for me*!!!

Good luck, I am finding tele to be a challenge and I'm not on my own yet, I know its going to get tougher, but you will be amazed at yourself, finding out how much stored knowledge is in your brain and thinking about how far you've come from Nursing 101 :) And we still have a long way to go