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Discussion

Telemetry Unit

I was offered a position to work as a patient care technician on a telemetry unit. I was told I would be cross trained as a monitor technician. I also was offered a position on an oncology unit and would be able to learn phlebotomy. During one of the interviews, the interviewer told me that once you go into critical care it's harder to work on units that are less critical, such as oncology. Can you explain what she meant by this?

My problem is that I am not sure which offer I should accept. I am a sophomore level nursing student currently and feel like the telemetry unit might be too fast faced for me to practice my skills. I personally like a unit where I am not sitting and always busy. However, as a monitor technician I would not want to be sitting and staring at a screen during my shifts. If you can please share your experiences with working on a critical care unit and what it is like, I would appreciate it!

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    Either position sounds like a good opportunity. And either position would be a fine way to start building a base for your career. I would lean towards taking whichever position gave you a better vibe in the interview, and/or whichever area you might be more interested in working in after graduation, since it's not uncommon for hospital units to hire former PCTs as nurses once they get licensed.

    As for critical care... I'm not certain what you're asking. For one, neither of those units sound like critical care, unless I'm misreading you. In terms of hiring, I guess there are two factors.

    1) Many times, nurses who work in critical care for a while aren't especially interested in returning to med-surg. They tend to go into sub-specialties, stay in critical care, go back to school, etc. That's just the general trend in nursing.

    2) It can be a little hard to get hired into a med-surg position after working as an RN in critical care for a while, mostly because of #1. HR and managers are wary of hiring someone who will likely leave as soon as a better opportunity comes along or who doesn't really want to be working in the environment they're hiring for.

    In any case, I'm talking about nurses who are already licensed and registered. The above doesn't really apply to PCTs. Take whichever job you think sounds more appealing. They're both good opportunities.

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