Please explain what an ELECTROCARDIOLOGY RN does?

[Nack]

Hello All,

I am interested in a position posted at a hospital very close to my house. The description of the position says ELECTROCARDIOLOGY RN. I am wondering if this is the RN that goes around doing scheduled and stat EKG's around the hospital or if this is an RN on a cardiology unit. There isn't really much more of a description in the job posting. Any information would be great. Thank you!

[EmergencyNrse]

Never heard of such a thing...

But hey, someone was talking about a "pet nurse" last month and I hadn't heard of that before either.

[brownbook]

I have no idea!!! Iv'e worked acute care 30 years! Where do they come up with these things! Go to the hospital, or call, and ask for a job description.

Used to be a CNA tech, or cardio/pulmonary, would do EKG's. I can't imagine they would pay a RN just go around the hospital doing EKG's?

[JulieCVICURN, BSN, RN]

I think you probably hit the nail on the head. We have an EKG department and one of my former co-workers does just that - going around with the EKG and doing the scheduled tests every day. I don't think it would be a floor RN on a cardiology unit, because I think that would just be listed as "Cardiac RN" or "RN for Cardiac unit". I could be wrong.

She also assists with things like bedside TEE's.

[ebear, BSN, RN]

Could it be that you would be working with electrophysiology MDs in the cath lab?

[ObtundedRN, BSN, RN]

My hospital has techs that do the EKGs. They wouldn't waste their money on an RN to do it if they can pay a tech less. Then again, maybe it would be nice to have an RN doing it so I don't get EKGs with tons of artifact and shows me nothing...

[hannahmaepunk]

Non-RN's can do EKG with proper training and they get paid less than RN's, why hire RN's then? Electrocardiogram tracing is a SINGLE diagnostic/nursing procedure, so i guess if you want to spend a whole day doing nothing but EKG's, it's your call.

[GreyGull]

Some Cardiology Departments are still called Electrocardiology Departments. I believe I have heard RNs traveling from TX and NV still use this term which came about long ago when these departments were able to be free standing as EKGs and not melted into Cardiology, Neurodiagnostics, Respiratory or Cardiopulmonary. Even if they did combine, some didn't change their names.

Another example: there used to be free standing Respiratory Departements and now there are Cardiopulmonary Departments. Of course some have also kept the name Respiratory but have merged to stay alive with other departments or their RTs have cross trained to do echo, stress test, EKG or whatever.

What an RN might be involved in, if only to monitor, start IVs and push meds, for this type of department would be:

Echocardiography

Transesophageal Echocardiography

Holter Monitoring

Cardiac Ultrasound Imaging

Stress Testing

Nuclear Medicine Scans

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

OP, when you find out exactly what the position entails, please update. I'm curious now.

[maiday]

I know this thread is a little old but for anybody still interested... I'm sure it varies from hospital to hospital but this is from mine:

The RN will perform stress tests and Cardiology procedures to include treadmills, Dobutamine stress echos, Nuclear studies, Transesophogeal Echos and Tilt table tests.

[xtxrn, ASN, RN]

Yep. My electrophysiologist in TX had a nurse with him all of the time. Tests, rounds, etc.