NICU to Tele????

Hi,

I have no experience with NICU, but I can tell you that any telemetry unit is filled with it's own challenges. I went to tele fresh out of school two years ago and love it.

I can tell you that my orientation was 12 weeks, with about 2 in the classroom and the rest on the unit. I learned competencies that we are not taught in school (like pulling central lines, accessing mediports, doing EKG's, code protocol, and also different protocols that are specific to my hospital). I also spent a day in the cath lab and two days in an EKG interpretation class and a day with our tele monitors learning basic and abnormal rhythms. The rest of my orientation I spent on the unit with a preceptor who took me through the basics and the more advanced stuff we do, including assessment, skills, etc. I had to be signed off on certain skills before I could do them by myself, and worked my way up to a full patient load. One difference that you can anticipate is having more patients than I imagine you have in a NICU. We get 5-6 on my unit. It takes some organization to get everything done, and this takes time to get used to. Expect to be late leaving for a while until you get it down, and even then there will be days when you leave late due to emergencies, etc. Also working with adults is very different than working with babies who can't talk back to you. One thing you have got going is that you have experience in critical care. SOME of it will translate, but not all. Your labs values are very different for adults, so critical values that you know now, will have to be forgotten and you will need to learn new ones. Heart drugs and electrolyte replacement therapies are important to know. Know your vital sign parameters also since they are different as well. You also get lots of other disease processes on a tele unit, like diabetes, CHF, COPD, cancer, etc., so you are not just seeing MI patients. You need to be familiar with the most common ones, and look up stuff you are unsure of like drugs, tests, etc.

Hope this helps!

Amy