Medical vs Surgical ICU Elective Rotation

[hmtpnw]

I am struggling to decide between a medical or surgical ICU elective rotation. Any PAs here have thoughts on which would potentially be more useful to me? 

Some details that may be helpful...

• Right now, I am interested in working in critical care vs hospitalist
• I am not interested in working in surgery necessarily but would definitely be interested in managing surgical patients on the floor
• Whether I choose medical or surgical ICU, it will be cardiac, so CCU vs CT surg ICU
• I get two elective rotations in total and my other elective rotation will likely be transplant surgery where I will be almost exclusively working on the floor with a PA based team
• I am also trying to get a hospitalist service rotation for my required IM rotation

[LT_Oneal_PAC]

Medical. In residency I did both and felt I learned more in the MICU. If you can manage complex medical patients, you can manage surgical patients. Definitely more procedures in SNICU, but doubt you’ll get much as a student, but could be wrong.

[hmtpnw]

3 minutes ago, LT_Oneal_PAC said:

Medical. In residency I did both and felt I learned more in the MICU. If you can manage complex medical patients, you can manage surgical patients. Definitely more procedures in SNICU, but doubt you’ll get much as a student, but could be wrong.

Thank you so much for your input! I really appreciate it. 

Being that I am interested in critical care, do you think transplant surgery is a good use of my second elective? I wasn't initially drawn to it because I thought it would be more surgical, but my adviser felt that it would be a good fit. She framed it in a way that I would be seeing an APP based team functioning at the top of their scope, could be on the floor almost all of the time and only go to the OR if I was interested in a case, would have the opportunity to manage very sick patients, etc.

[UGoLong]

Thank you so much for your input! I really appreciate it. 
Being that I am interested in critical care, do you think transplant surgery is a good use of my second elective? I wasn't initially drawn to it because I thought it would be more surgical, but my adviser felt that it would be a good fit. She framed it in a way that I would be seeing an APP based team functioning at the top of their scope, could be on the floor almost all of the time and only go to the OR if I was interested in a case, would have the opportunity to manage very sick patients, etc.

Sounds like a good experience and one that can be hard to get.


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[LT_Oneal_PAC]

17 minutes ago, hmtpnw said:

Thank you so much for your input! I really appreciate it. 

Being that I am interested in critical care, do you think transplant surgery is a good use of my second elective? I wasn't initially drawn to it because I thought it would be more surgical, but my adviser felt that it would be a good fit. She framed it in a way that I would be seeing an APP based team functioning at the top of their scope, could be on the floor almost all of the time and only go to the OR if I was interested in a case, would have the opportunity to manage very sick patients, etc.

I was a heart and lung transplant ICU nurse before. Great place to learn. Strong mix of medical and surgical in sick patients. They are VERY sick and often treated differently than your standard patient. If you learn the physiology behind it, as opposed to learning algorithms in transplant medicine that you can’t really apply elsewhere, you’ll be a rock star in critcare.