[BryanG]

I am graduating next month from an ADN program and will begin in the ICU. Any advice on going straight to the ICU?

[nursinghumor]

It is all a matter of orientation. If they take the time to train you properly, teach you what to look out for, how to do an expert assessment and deal with critically ill patients, you may do fine.

If the precepting, mentoring you receive is less than adequate, you'll be setting yourself up for failure.

Getting your bearings on any floor as a new graduate is difficult enough. It's that much more difficult getting your start in critical care.

I'd try to speak to several nurses working in the ICU to get a feel for how new graduates are trained and how much time, energy and patience they devote to new orientees. I'd look for an orientation period of at least six months.

Andrew Lopez, RN
A to Z Nursing Resources
http://www.nursinga2z.com

[sherrie1996rn]

Good luck finding a facility that will give 6mos. orientation. Average for new grad is 6wks. Take full advantage of your orientation time. If you get a preceptor that you feel isn't interested in orienting you then please don't hesitate to request a new one. It is your orientation! I have experienced preceptors that wanted someone to do their work for them and have no interest in teaching or sharing their knowledge. My first year I did med-surg and got two weeks orientation. I then transferred to ICU and my preceptor left me on my own literally. She hung out in the ER and took many smoke breaks. I was afraid to rock the boat and ask for a new preceptor, but if I had to do it again I would have handled it differently. Good luck. I never regreted transferring to ICU.

[allendit]

Hi New Grad:

Nursing has changed today. Back in the days, a new grad would not have been recruited to specialty areas w/o med-surg background. I still feel, this is the best nursing area, you see and do so much base assessment, using the skills taught in nursing school and build on experience that prepares you for any other specialty area. I find many preceptors lacking precepting skills and rather try to teach you how to do nursing; which you are already. They need to teach you to do the things in that specialty area, not how to take vitals, or listen to heart sounds, but rather, this is what we do when this scenario arises and why we do this and the outcome. then give you senarios and ask you to assess and give feed back.They also need to give support and encouragement instead of trying to bad mouth you or being picky about the wrong things like yor'e too slow, etc.

love; didi:luck: :luck: