I have worked as a nurse at the bedside before in the adult ICU, interventional radiology, and in out-patient pediatric sedation.

What is your work life like?

Arrive at the unit between 7-9 am (depending on when my shift that day started) and receive a report from the nurse who was “in charge” that day. The report would consist of which interventional radiologists were on which services that day and the types of procedures that were scheduled. I would fill-out a report sheet on the patients I would be caring for that day which would consist of if they were in-patient or out-patient, prescribed medications, laboratory values (specifically those related to hematology), allergies, and diagnoses. I would set up the procedure rooms for either a biopsy using the CT scanner or the fluoroscopy machine for a PICC line insertion. I would then retrieve the patient, get them situated and ready for the procedure, alert the interventional radiologist that I was ready, administer sedation medication, assist with the procedure, monitor the patient, clean up the procedure when it was finished, and take the patient to the recovery area to be monitored by the recovery room nurses.

I typically would assist with 2-4 procedures, depending on the length of the procedures and the day, and would help with other various duties around the unit such as IV insertions and monitoring of patients who were having allergic reactions to iodine. At the end of the day, I would assist with the narcotic medication count and lock up and fill-out any forms that were needed for the next day. I also was on-call one night a week (up until 9 pm) and one weekend a month to be available to come in for urgent procedures.

Pros

The pros of this type of job were the “normal” hours; I worked four 8-hour shifts a week instead of three 12-hour shifts. It was also interesting building a different type of skill set than where I had previously worked in the ICU.

Cons

The biggest con of this type of job was working the on-call hours. When on-call I could do little else besides sit at home and wait for the phone to ring because I had a response time of 30 minutes and lived 20 minutes away from the hospital.

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