Which is a better path?

Sparrow91 · Jan 16, 2015

I would say look at your job listings for ICU. In all the ones I have looked at they say they want either previous ICU experience or several years of medical surgical experience.

scaredsilly, BSN, RN · Jan 16, 2015

ICU at least in my area seem to hire a lot of new grads. You may be able to start there. Do you have job offers now, OP? If not, apply for everything and if you get an offer, I suggest taking it. New grad jobs can be a struggle to find.

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · Jan 16, 2015

Congratulations on having options! With the current job market it's not real common to have choices between offered positions. If your eventual goal is ICU, look at the job requirements and experience needed for that unit if you can. Don't ask the ICU nurses for advice on this [at least not in that hospital] as your soon to be nurse manager will most likely hear about it and won't be pleased that you are interested in a different floor before you even start.

thich · Jan 17, 2015

Thanks for the advice! There are just so many avenues to get where you want to go, it's hard to know the best.

Guests · Jan 17, 2015

Well, I know ICU nurses at our hospital who've come from the floor but we've had a number go from the ED to the ICUs.

At least in our facility, the ED would be much better choice because we already take care of ICU patients anyway... vents, titrateable drips, PA caths (in theory)... all the basics (we don't do EVDs or balloon pumps... we've had ECMO set up an run in our ED but that's a specialty team). We also handle more codes than the floors and, at our facility, the floor codes are run by the code team.

Your mileage may vary but in my hospital, the ED provides a much better proving ground for the ICUs than do the wards.

crj96 · Jan 18, 2015

My personal opinion is to go for the med/surg unit. I think an ED job straight out of school is dangerous on many levels. What I've seen in the ED is that you have to have a lot of knowledge PLUS experience to really be able to think critically. My experience has been that nursing school really did more to teach me HOW to be a nurse, but the majority of my training has come from being on the floor. I would start med/surg for at least a year and then try for a transfer to the ED, then on to ICU.