Precepting in the MICU

[danceyrun]

I'm a nursing student and starting my senior partnership in the MICU. I feel super lucky but also really scared!! How do I prepare? What kind of diagnoses will I see? It is not a trauma center so I know no traumas. Any advice?

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

1) You are not precepting, the nurse whom you shadow is precepting you. You are "doing your preceptorship" with him/her.

2) Presumably you applied for this opportunity based on some knowledge; you didn't pull MICU out of the air and they didn't just pull your name out of a hat. :) What did you tell them on your app? What did you want to learn? What diagnoses did you expect?

3) Get really familiar with the concepts and mechanics of cardiac output, arterial blood gases, and labs related to renal and hepatic failure. If you get those down, a lot of everything else you will see and hear will relate to them in some way and you can start to build a better understanding of the epic physiology fails that bring people to MICU in the first place. :)

[danceyrun]

Thanks for your response! I will make sure I review renal and hepatic systems. They did actually just put me there, we don't apply for our partnerships at our school- our professors place us in all different areas. I would expect pneumonia, sepsis, respiratory distress. I wasn't really sure because it is not a specific ICU so I didn't know if I would see much cardiac or neuro. Thanks again for responding.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

MICU...medical ICU usually means there are other ICU' in the facility. MICU usually means pneumonia, respiratory/COPD, CVA's (unless they have a Neuro ICU) Usually this is where ICU patient that don't "fit" the other ICU's in the facility are admitted.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

And everybody has a heart and lungs, usually unhealthy ones, in the MICU. :)