Senior Practicum: ICU vs ED

[MiniBabyRN]

I am a senior BSN student and will be graduating in May! Because it is our senior year, we get to rank choices for where we would like to do one of our senior practicums, and I am torn between the ICU and the ED. We can have one clinical in one of those areas, but the other has to be on a medical, surgical, or oncology floor where we can manage a team of patients. I am currently doing an observational clinical in the PICU and absolutely love it. I would like to eventually work in the PICU or NICU. However, if I don't get placed in an emergency room clinical then I will end up graduating without any emergency care experience. Do you think it would be better to try to get the ICU since that's what I want to do? The areas would be either surgical, medical, cardiac, or neuro intensive care. Or would it be better to try to get the emergency room so I can have that experience? Thanks for your input!

[IHeartDukeCTICU]

It depends on what you want the experience for. If you want to do the ED b/c you are curious and may never get a chance to do it again since you're inclined to do peds, than do ED. Who knows you may even love it. My roomate is an ED nurse and ended up doing peds ED.

But, if you're looking for an experience that may help you transition into PICU/NICU, one of the ICU's may help you there. In one of the ICU's you will get alot of experience monitoring and managing hemodynamics, use of invasive monitoring, maybe even mechanical support (IABP, VAD, ECMO). Plus you'll probably be doing alot with vasoactive/inotropic meds. And mech ventilation. You'll prob get some of this in the ED, but it's a whole different ball game there. Before I graduated, I wanted to go into the ICU, so I did an ICU practicum and it helped alot. My roomate did ED prior to her graduating and going into the ED.