New Unit

[silentRN]

I currently work on the Trauma-Surgical ICU. We moved to a new tower that just opened. And so our old unit in the older tower, the hospital is doing some remodeling and I assume (hope) putting in new equipment and monitors. We got an email from our manager asking if any of us would like to rotate to the old unit when it opens in Jan. It will open as a MSICU, and we with one other CCU have to staff this new unit. I emailed her back and said I will do a month when it first opens. I'm also thinking it would be a great learning experience to see new things. Being able to actually see disease processes, other than just banged up trauma patients. I also have in the back of my mind that there will be a lot of new fresh faces there; because the new grads we are orientating now in the trauma ICU were hired to staff the new MSICU, so it will be a breath of fresh air and I can get away from the vindictiveness and cliquish ways of some of our more seasoned nurses. What are your opinions about this? Has anyone ever worked a MSICU? I just hope I made a good choice and it doesn't turn out awful.

[CABG patch kid, BSN, RN]

Speaking from the other side of the fence here, well I currently work in CCU but not all of our pts are coronary or CV surgical. We get our fair share of pneumonia, CHF exacerbation leading to resp failure, drug OD, and other end stage chronic disease pts, like renal and liver failure. So I'd say all that's pretty similar to what you'll see in the MSICU. I like it, you can say its a "slower" pace, as much as it can be I guess, since we usually have a few pts who are hard to wean off the vent, who may be fairly stable, maybe on a pressor or two, but nothing like the faster pace fresh post op pt.

However I say the other side of the fence because I've never personally worked trauma ICU, I've seen a bit in school and in our hospital the CCU doesn't get the trauma pts, so I have next to no experience with it. Anyway, sounds like you are looking for a bit of a change and are looking forward to it, so I hope you enjoy the MSICU and who knows, maybe you'll stay there for a bit and help those new grads out!

[PostOpPrincess, BSN, RN]

MSICU can, like the other units, get old. I like the really weird disease processes.

But even then...it gets old....