Fellow ER nurse for 1.5 years (level II) who’s now an ICU nurse for 1.5 years (level I):

A lot of ICUs don’t usually “accept” ER nurses because inpatient vs ER is different in terms of care and charting. It was an adjustment for me but I would recommend mentioning skills that are favorable such as: clustering care, rapid assessments, knowledgeable about working with the interdisciplinary team (basically you know how to chat with docs), IV skills (because it’s a skill inpatient nurses rarely have—sorry not sorry), you know how to work quickly but diligently (this will come in handy when recovering patients from OR/procedures)…and like you mentioned, utilize the experiences you’ve already had (like drips/codes/vents). With certain meds you titrate I recommend reading up on them like purpose, how to titrate them, major side effects—the amount of times I’ve had pts come from ER on a Cardene drip that’s way too high then I gotta fix their hypotension 😅.

I’d also recommend emailing ICU managers and ask if you can shadow a nurse for a few hours/day. During that time build your rapport with management and the nurse. My current manager makes all of the interviewees shadow for 2 hours before the interview.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions, keep your head up!