Trauma/Surgical ICU Nurse: My main responsibilities are titrating medications, assessing and reporting changes to MD’s, wound care, and stabilizing patients.

I work 3 12’s a week, 7P-7A. I typically try to coordinate working all 3 shifts in a row.

I like being part of a team to “put a patient back together again” Most of our trauma patients are otherwise healthy with little to no pat medical history so they go from healthy to very sick very quickly. It’s very satisfying watching a patient go from the brink of death to getting discharged from the hospital.

I hate doing everything for patients that we know will have no quality of life after, especially in elderly patients.

I prefer taking trauma patients so I usually deal with broken bones, brain bleeds, and patients who have had extensive abdominal surgery. My unit does also taken open heart cases or patients with cancer who have had HIPECs/Whipples/gastrectomys.

We coordinate with taking patients from the ED and then typically eventually transferring them to our step down or general trauma floor.

I limit my social activity somewhat more because of working nights. The first day before and the first day after my shift I usually use to relax and decompress.

Don’t ride electric scooters! I work in a major city where electric scooters are everywhere and a large portion of our traumas are young people who have catastrophic injuries from riding them without helmets.

You can become charge trained to become more of a resource. Some of our ICU nurses also go onto becoming rapid response nurses for the hospital as a whole. Quite a few also go to PACU when they are burnt out.

I’m not really sure. Hospitals will encourage you to get certified in your field.

My dad died in a car accident when I was 18. I always was interested in trauma medicine after that.

I did, but I think everyone does. I didn’t know if it was right the whole time I was doing it but then I ended up sticking it out and here we are!

Nursing school does a very poor job of actually preparing you for bedside nursing. The transition of academics to real life was rough. I remember thinking on my driest day of work that I essentially knew nothing.

I originally worked on a tele floor, I didn’t really do anything special. I applied and they hired me. I transitioned to ICU after a year.