Why Rehab Nursing

Wondering about how a night on a rehab floor looks like?

You will notice a big difference here compared to other floors like telemetry, med/surg, and ortho floors.

In Telemetry: The patients wear heart monitors. From there you can tell your patients' rhythm. In rehab, you may want to do hourly rounding religiously to check if their chests still move up and down.

In Med/surg: A good number of your patients get IVF and IV antibiotics. You get to start IVs more often. In rehab, most of your patients do not even have IV access. If they do, usually, they have PICC lines instead of peripheral IVs.

In Ortho: About half of your patients are on PCA, frequent vitals, continuous pulse ox monitoring, and supplemental oxygen. You're busy passing pain and anti nausea meds all night. In rehab, most of your patients sleep at night and only wake up to use the bathroom.

On a rehab floor, you may be assigned more patients. Maybe you'll have 7 (or more). You rarely hang blood products, start IVs, and admit unstable, very sick, or dying patients. You awaken your patients at a later time to do vitals, lab work, etc. because you want them to rest longer.

If you work here daily, you get to be attached to the patients. You get to know them better. And, here's the best part. Initially, they come to you in vulnerable state but then they eventually leave rehabilitated, stronger, happier, and more independent.

Some nurses stay away from rehab for the fear that they won't be challenged enough. They think they will just get bored. I've thought about it the same way, too. But after floating here a few days, after working with these nurses who love what they do, I got to understand why they chose to work here.

Last night, I had a good night working with these people. I only had 5 patients. I got to--hang platelets (very rare on this floor), draw blood, assist stroke patients with transfers and ambulation, and pass only a few pills. I had no puking, complaining, or drug-seeking patients.

My patients came to this floor for common reasons--to work hard and improve themselves, to get better so that they can eventually go home. This morning, I helped one of them get ready for discharge because she will graduate later today--back to her home after 20 days! She came to rehab on a wheelchair and will be leaving with a cane. OK, may be not exactly, she still needs to be wheeled out the door because of the facility's policy.