Training

I have been working in A SICU for the last 6 months. I was prior to this job a cardiac step down RN for the last 12 years and had worked about a year in ICU settings. I have had on the job training for post open hearts I was able to recover 10 open hearts in my training. I took an online class about HD monitoring. The other day I came into work and was given a hypothermia patient. The patient was cooled prior to my arrival. Another coworker experienced in hypothermia was my back up. I did not receive any formal training on the machine or protocol. The good news is, I had the patient for 2 days and he returned to complete normal functioning. I am a strong RN and always ask questions if I am not sure. Do other hospitals have training programs for this? Should I have taken the patient? Is on the job training enough?

many times it is on your feet training-where I am we would do at least one shift to orient to cooling pts. If they are stable you have time to open up the policy and read about why you are doing what, and why that heart rate keeps going down, etc. usually you follow the protocol and are good to go-hopefully the docs know it well!

So no, I do not think that it is that out of the box.