Hey everyone, I've been doing a lot of hard thinking lately and would like some input on a decision I need to make. I currently work in a medium/large sized metro hospital in the med/surge icu. We see everything except for peds, burns, and transplants. I feel like this icu will prepare me for crna school because we take care of some cardio patients (CHF, arrests, MI, CABGS, valve repairs) and sometimes have patients on balloon pumps and arctic sun. I also see a lot of different gtts used in this icu including levo, epi, neo, vasopressin, dopamine, cardene, cardizem, and nitro. I would have to work in this icu for another year before i would start taking our heart surgery patients.
But here's where it gets tricky, I have recently been offered a job in another metro hospital that i wanted to work at before i started my current job. This job is in a transplant icu that does liver, kidney, pancreas and lung transplants. Here, i would not see such a variety in gtts. The only 2 they use on a common basis are levo, and vasopressin. However, in this icu I would see A LOT more fancy equipment such as ECHMO and CRRT. Occasionally, i see crrt at my current icu, just not very often. Also important to note- the transplant icu is in a larger hospital that also has cardiac icus so it would be rare for me to get cardiac patients.
Anyways, the main question I've been pondering and would like to ask all of you experienced nurses, SRNAs, and CRNAs, is what would prepare me better for CRNA school? Using a larger variety of drips in the icu that sees some cardiac patients, or having experience with machines such as echmo and crrt and caring for extremely sick pts pre/post transplant?
