cleothekat

I was just curious, I have been in PACU a long time and transferring to another hospital for closer commute with the added call required in OR vs PACU. Best of luck!

If you don't mind me asking, why did you leave PACU?

Olive, I am moving from PACU to OR. Are you liking OR so far? Did you do PACU for a long time?

Hi! I have been a nurse for almost 20 years and in PACU over a decade.I am burnt out with patients in PACU and just accepted an OR job that is in a closer hospital (same company) verses a 30 minute commute to my current hospital. Anesthesiologists I currenting work with have said I won't grow in OR and techs do everything it would be a waste of my knowledge. I am feeling change is good and am eager to learn something new and stay in the surgical area, and use my critical thinking skills to anticipate the needs of the OR team. Any PACU or OR nurses that have made this change give me any words of wisdom or encouragement. Thanks!

I suggest go for it! I worked on a medical-surgical ICU for 3 years on night shift and I got really burned out. I did not realize it had happened until after I left. I enjoyed ICU and the challenge, but the constant worrying about the unstable patients, dealing with familys and hopeless situations drained me. I had a hard time leaving work at work and always thought about the what if's. I have been in pacu for over 6 months and I am enjoying it. Within a few weeks of starting I felt a weight lifted off of me and realized how burnt out I was. Sure PACU has its not so great things. But it is a nice change, and I dont miss ICU. We do get the vented, hemodyanically unstable pt on occasion and you get to use your skills, but you dont have to deal with them for 12 hours. The one thing that I have enjoyed about PACU is you get to see a mostly positive outcome. You get to offer pain relief, pts get to go home sometimes, and you do follow ups with them and find out for the most part they are doing fine. It is nice to see a happy outcome more often then not! Sure there is call, but perks outway the few not so fun things! Good Luck.

Hi, I work in a non teaching hospital in the Med/surg ICU. We can place art lines if you get certified through the hospitals class. It really comes in handy to have one or 2 nurses who can place your line especially in the middle of the night when there are NO physicians available or willing to come in to place it. I think it is a great added task to your resume and skills list.

Hi! I had a head bleed patient and needed to keep bp 120-160 systolic. Upon arrival to unit we were using a noninvasive cuff which was giving me blood pressures within this parameter. :) At 3am we finally got in a radial a line but my pressure from the a line was reading 180s to 190s and my cuff was reading 150's. my patient was in aflutter so my waveform on my aline was correlating with that. I could not tell if there was a whip in the line. But now what blood pressure do I treat. If his bp is really 180's I need to crank up the nipride, but if the cuff is correct I am okay. What do you guys do. It always seems that you open a can of worms the more monitoring you add..... Thanks for your help!