AnnieRN

It sounds like you have an opportunity to be a leader in your new job. Having a great crew to work with is crucial to job satisfaction. Just because something isn't deemed mandatory doesn't mean it can't be done,right? Lead by example and refrain from the age old..'where I USED to work we did.." Good Luck

I work at a 10 bed community hospital ICU. We have a person designated to be charge each shift. The charge nurse takes a full assignment. Most of our nurses are very independant so the charge role is just the focus person for assigning new admits,handling any complaints if the manager is not around or helping new staff with their assignment etc. A person is deemed ready for charge when they are able to handle all the invasive proceedures we do and are able to handle more than one critical patient. They also must be able to have knowledge of what's going on with the other patients as far as what patient is transferable if we have a bed crunch. We do get a small charge nurse differential.

How about.."the only thing we can do is mfc..measure for coffin".

Hello! Call me old-fashioned,but I think most nurses benefit from at least six months of some sort of med-surge nursing when they are fresh out of school. Here are my reasons. First,you learn organization. You also learn how to assess your patient without a lot of fancy equipment. You also build self confidence when dealing with doctors. There is so much to learn when you graduate from nursing school. School teaches you the skills you need but working with patients independently is where the real learning begins. ICU nursing builds on the basic skills you aquire through experience. Not to say that a new grad can't make it in ICU. The reason most units are allowing new grads in is the nursing shortage. I have tried to train new or very inexperienced nurses in intensive care and it can be difficult. There are certainly exceptional nurses who will excell where ever they find themselves working. Good luck!

Thank for your responses! My concerns continue to run deep about introducing these invasive proceedure to our hospital. Number one is our staffing. Realizing that these patients truely require 1:1 nursing presents many problems. We are currently working with only 10 full time nurses. 10! We can barely cover sick calls. This weekend we were staffed with 2 Rn's for six patients which was manageable only because these people were not all vented and swaned. Coupled with the fact that I will feel like I will be getting on the job training with this proceedure. Most of these patients could be shipped to the city where they have balloon pump teams in the the time it takes me to read the owners manual to operate the pump. My manager is not dealing with the reality of this and is unapproachable. I have gone to the medical doctors and the chairman of the medical staff expressing my concerns. The cardiologist who is also our ICU medical director is the little maniac who wants the pump. What a mess. Thanks for listening to me ramble.

To all ICU nurses; How much training did you recieve before you were expected to be able to safely care for a patient with a balloon pump? I work in a community hospital that has decided to be the premier community hospital that will be using the balloon as a "bridge" to stablize our patients and ready them for transfer to a tertiary care center. We are a young staff in terms of critical care experience and none of us has ever worked with a pump. We are also extemely short staffed. Our unit is often staffed with two RN's, one who may only have been in ICU for less than six months. We have seven beds open but often must hold the census due to staffing issues. Now they want to intrduce the balloon pump. So far the training has consisted of one eight hour class..some of us were not privelged enough to even finish the class because we were expected to work. We also had a two hour mock insertion with the sales rep. I do not feel this is adequate. Am i being unrealistic to think that we we need more training??