I’m so excited to announce that I was recently accepted into the MICU (medical intensive care unit) at my hospital! Critical care class starts in 2 days and I just finished my last shift on the telemetry med-surg and orthopedic unit!! I loved my team there– the people are truly incredible. The CCPs, PCAs, management, my fellow night nurses and day nurses made my time there truly amazing. It felt like a great teamwork every night, making sure essential things get done and always going above and beyond. 🙂
One year ago, I started at a nursing home for a month. 11 months ago, I started at the hospital on the telemetry unit. My hospital is having some of our ICU nurses go to another hospital in the system to build up their units so this great opportunity came up for me to go work in the ICU.
Fortunately, the interview was a “formality” but it’s no excuse not to prepare! With nearly a year of experience under my belt, it was much easier to come up with experiences showing my leadership. And remember, people relate to specific STORIES more than generalities! Here is a list of questions the nurse manager asked me.
- May I see your resume? (Asks questions on the resume especially regarding additional schooling aka your future plans and previous experience)
- What made you interested in coming to the ICU?
- How has your experience prepared you?
- What kind of drips have you used?
- Have you called a RRT or a neuro RRT or code before? What happened? What was that like?
- Describe a busy night for you.
- If you have several things going on, how do you deal with that? (Delegation and priority- give specific examples where this came in handy!))
- How do you keep your ancillary staff accountable? Do you always or only sometimes have huddles? Do you meet up with them again? How do you make sure they do what you asked them to?
- What do you do when you’re unsure of something?
- What is a strength you have? A weakness?
- What have you heard about this unit?
- Do you have any questions for me? (The answer is always yes and you ask questions!! Such as the type of patients, the ratio, the professional nursing organization, scheduling, etc)
I hope this helps! If you have heard of additional questions, I’d be happy to add in more to get a more comprehensive list. And happy thanksgiving to everyone!! I have a lot to be thankful for, including the readers who have given me positive feedback through emails, comments, and likes. 🙂 so thank you!!!