Somehow I managed to pull out a passing grade or rather grades, on the critical care course - or the 5 courses that made it up. I've never earned 25 transferrable credits in such a short time in my life. Nor have I ever learned so much in such a brief moment either. It's fair to say I've learned more about caring for the critically ill and near death then at any point in four years of a Bachelor of Nursing program.

It's a bit of an odd feeling, too. Your whole perspective as a nurse working in critical care changes. At least it has for me. My view of the world as a nurse went from passing meds to 5 to 8 patients, keeping an eye on their nutrition and toileting, tending to other co-morbidities, to the other end of the spectrum - a single patient assignment with the simple goal of keeping them breathing until the next shift. ICU nurses strike me as part mechanic, part nurse. Constantly titrating IV drugs up or down, running and re-running labs, monitoring heart rhythms, in my unit's case, monitoring brain pressures, activity and neurological signs and tending to the family's anxiety and, in less fortunate cases, grieving. There's always some adjustment to be made as the patients are typically really unstable or they wouldn't be in the ICU in the first place. And if you screw up and miss something, before long, the consequences of your mistake could be irreversible. Profs always harped on the importance of critical thinking but I never realized its value as a floor nurse. Now, a different story entirely. It's a sea change from what I was trained to do in university.

They always said that nursing school gave you only the barest minimums of training. Everything else you'd be expected to get on the job or from further education. And clearly that has proven true for me. Time will tell if I'm cut out for it I suppose.