ICU rotation-advice needed

[babylonsister]

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I am starting an MICU rotation on Monday and I am scared/excited. I have already matched in medicine and am rotating at the hospital where I have matched. I feel like ICU will be so different from what I am used to on ward medicine. I would greatly appreciate any advice others who have done ICU would give to a med student about to take the plunge ! Thanks. 🙂

 

[Wednesday]

Hi!

I did a unit month this spring and actually really loved it. I wanted to do one before I actually had real responsibility in July. I found that it wasn't much different from regular medicine services except that everything gets done MUCH faster, so you have to be on top of things, but you usually have fewer patients to focus on. And pretty much everyone is on a vent. The great part is that you are all on one unit together--the consultants come there and you can stop them and talk to them (no endless chart checking), x-rays results are called to you, you don't have to track down the nurses (and the nurses are usually very helpful). I learned a TON about ventilators and electrolytes. It was one of the best months I had overall in med school, learning wise. Don't worry too much and feel glad that it's not you running the codes just yet. 🙂

 

[tiredmom]

My experience has been limited to SICU so far. They had a cheat sheet form that you copied for your presentation of patients - so you went in the order they wanted you to. If you went out of order, they would continually interrupt you asking about stuff. And wear comfortable shoes - our rounds were 3+ hours every day!