Currently med surg nurses work in a variety of positions both on the hospital floor and beyond.
What is med surg floor.
Becoming a medical surgical nurse.
Med surg nursing requires attention to detail excellent multi tasking skills and a level head under pressure.
When nursing was a younger profession the majority of nurses worked in wards performing bedside care and most were classified as medical surgical nurses.
Core curriculum for medical surgical nursing.
The thins that i do during my shift overnights are taking and charting vital signs change patients that need to be changed answer call bells help patients to and from bathroom emptying foleys drains ng canisters and colostomies measuring and recording them.
This is just not so in the icu.
Med surg nurses share the spark that ignited their passion.
Medical surgical nurses aka med surg nurses work in a variety of clinical settings and their work supports many patients post surgery or in a general medicine unit.
The floor mostly consists of surgical patients with medical mixed in.
The medical surgical nursing field has progressed from an entry level job position to a unique comprehensive specialty.
As the largest branch of nursing care med surg nursing has the widest variety of potential patients and diagnoses.
Some hospitals funnel patients from the er up into the med surg unit so this provides a lot of variety and a guarantee that you ll never experience the same day twice as a med surg.
It can be difficult to keep our sparks burning bright but amsn president robin hertel and some special med surg rns commit to being your spark when you need it.
It s also often the first nursing job and nurse has out of school.
On the floor your vital signs may be taken every few hours rather than being constantly monitored as you would be in the critical care areas.
Shared one med surg lpn who works in a small hospital we only have one floor for med surg so we get a wide variety of patients from myocardial infarction and strokes to post ops and chemotherapy and detox patients.
On a med surg floor you may have iv pumps sequential compression devices telemetry boxes continuous motion machines and other more or less standard equipment of the nursing profession.
For starters learning how to operate the ventilator could take up an entire nursing school class.
It is complex.
Many nurses continue med surg nursing for the excitement and experience it brings to their career.
Patients on the med surg floor.
This field is no longer seen as a stepping stone but a specialized science the backbone of a healthcare institution.
However i love med surg because it s never boring you just never know what s going to come up to your floor from the er and sometimes you really can make a difference in someone s life.