My First Day at the Neuro ICU

This is not med/surg. This, of course, means that most of our patients are on vents. They usually assign us only 1-2 patients here, but they are quite acute. But, I also think that my med/surg experience helped me out a lot. For example, most of our sickest patients are on a minimum of six(!) drips. I usually keep two TKOs and draw blood from an A-line. Since this is a neuro specialty, many of our patients are on ICP precautions and use drains to allow the CSF to seep out. The monitors are connected to every part of the patient and they are usually on a Foley or dignity tube (which collects feces). Depending on the situation, each patient is hooked up to a vent, an exterior ventricular drain (EVD) for CSF, an A-line which also has a transducer, and an EEG to read brain waves, lumbar drains, and multiple drips. Since I work during the day, I send many of our patients down to CT scan for an angiogram or a surgical coil to plug up their aneurysm, and to surgery so they can get the catheters inserted into the ventricles of their brain.