Practicum

[e2Bnurse]

Hi! I am a nursing school student about to pick my practicum class. I am thinking ICU and was wondering what is the best ICU specialty to observe on is(or even if it is just medical ICU). I have to rank my top choices so if you have advice about selecting other units as well (including ER, PCU, OR) I would be grateful. 

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

Do you know what area you want to work in after school? Much of the complexity in ICU is in titrating drips and doing very focused assessments, so the overall observation part could be a little less exciting. A PCU is a great place to observe if you already have some floor experience and you can see what it looks like when patients experience a change of condition. Trying to keep patients OUT of the ICU is a great skill of PCU nurses! If you have your heart set on an ICU, I would go with MICU, you'll get the widest range of patients and conditions. I would only choose OR if that's your planned career goal, although it is definitely cool to observe some surgeries.