onconewgrad

Hello everyone! I have 1.5 years experience on an oncology/tele/medical surgical floor and I was recently hired for a position in the Medical/Surgical/Trauma ICU. I will be primarily in the MICU but I was also told it was very likely to be floated to the other areas and that if I have an open bed, I may get a surgical/trauma patient. I am nervous (of course) simply because I know it will be completely different world for me. Any advice? Also, what do you guys use for your report sheet? Any organization tips that work well for you? Anything at all will be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

I always have at least one patient who is a q 2 hour turner, incontinent of both urine and stool, etc. I am used to total care, and sometimes we only have 1 PCT for 32 patients, so often times I don't have a PCT to help me with ADLs so I do it myself. As for death, we see that a lot on our floor with terminal cancer and patients and their families deciding on whether hospice is their option. Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it!

This May, I will complete my first year as a new graduate RN. Currently, I work on an Oncology/Medical Surgical/Telemetry unit. I have dealt with a large range of patients, and I have been exposed to tons of different experiences because our floor can have a pretty high acuity. Now my interest has always been in a medical/surgical ICU, but I wanted to start out on a medical surgical floor in order to gain confidence and time management skills as a new graduate nurse. Lately, I have felt like I have plateaued out; I don't feel like I am being challenged enough and I feel like I am losing my critical thinking skills.. every night seems like a routine and I am ready for something more challenging. The other night, we had a patient who coded on our floor, and I had a huge adrenaline rush. Everything clicked in place in my head, and all that high stress just gave me a burst of energy and I could think ten times more clearly. For me, it erased all my doubts of going to the ICU. For any ICU nurses, what do you recommend I can start doing now so I can hopefully transfer to the unit towards the end of this year? How can I present myself to the managers and the staff that I am a serious candidate? I am aware that I may need more experience, and considering how young I look (I get called "baby" and a "kiddo" all the time by the nurses on my floor) and my age (22) I am nervous I may not be taken seriously. Any advice or recommendations are greatly appreciated!

Since I am night shift, we might be having more issues with this only because there tends to be less staff at night (at least that is what I have noticed). But we can bring it up to our unit to make sure we tube our tubes down whenever we receive something. It is simple and takes only seconds of our time.

Yes, there are pharmacy techs and pharmacists, but there are also RNs who mix the medications.

I work on an oncology/med surgical unit and one of the persistent problems we have been having on the floor (esp. on night shift) is the communication between pharmacy. Most of our medications are in the pixus, but the most "important" ones like the antibiotics, scheduled IV ibuprofen, and insulin always seem to never be tubed up to our tube station in time. Now I know usually there are limited RNs mixing these medications, and I know the workload can be rough, but I find myself calling multiples times asking why my antibiotic that was due an hour ago still isn't here and their response is "oh we do not have tubes to send medications up. If you tube us one we can send it." Like, really? THAT is why my patient isn't getting their antibiotic for their neutropenic fever?? Other times I request missing medications and when I call to ask for it they tell me there was never a "request" in the first place (which I hardly believe). We have a government council on our floor with several staff members and we will be meeting with some of the pharmacy staff to discuss this. So my question is basically, how is the communication between your unit and the pharmacy? What are ways that improve the communication between your unit's staff and the pharmacy staff? If you want to see improvements, what are ways you would recommend?