We have two 12-bed Intensive Care Units and a 6-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit that serve the northern two-thirds of Maine. We are a staff that gets along well, supports each other, and works well as a team. Once nurses join us, they rarely leave.

PICU

Our 6-bed PICU serves children from birth to age 18. Our PICU nurses are also ICU nurses - if we don't have pediatric patients they care for our adults. Our patient population is varied and includes trauma patients, cardiology, neurology, and respiratory patients as well as children with rare genetic diseases. We have patients on ventilators and oscillators.

We are supported by Pediatric Intensivists 24/7.

ICU

We will take any patient into either of our two 12-bed units. As a Level II Trauma Center and the only regional source for intensive services, we see a lot of trauma. Our LifeFlight team brings us trauma victims injured by vehicular/moose accidents, as well as snowmobile, ATV and other car accidents. We also see many septic patients, as well as those with post-surgical complications.

Nurses, Intensivists and Respiratory Therapists all work very closely together and our respiratory therapists manage the ventilators in all critical care areas. Our team also includes decentralized pharmacists, social workers, palliative care specialists and chaplains.

We are supported by the experienced and highly-trained critical care nurses who staff EMMC's Critical Care Connection, which remotely assists us in a variety of ways including record reviews, hemodynamic waveform/profile evaluation, 2nd RN check for high-alert medications and blood products. We're also well-supported by our Clinical Supervisor and our Clinical Educator.

Resource Nurse

Our Resource Nurse is an experienced ICU nurse certified in ACLS and PALS. The primary responsibility of the Resource Nurse is to respond to all emergencies throughout the hospital and to assist novice staff as needed.

Continuing Education

Our nurses teach short education sessions monthly and our physicians frequently teach courses as well. EMMC offers a Critical Care course each fall and spring that devotes 4 weeks to CCU material and 4 weeks to ICU materials. We also offer a Pediatric Critical Care course every 1 or 2 years.

Orientation

Our orientation is highly personalized. We match our orientees and preceptors based on personality, skills and background so you will benefit from a person who has different specialty skills but a compatible personality. Our orientation was entirely reorganized by our preceptors to best meet the needs of our orientees.

We use the web-based Essentials of Critical Care Orientation (ECCO) developed by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses and the opportunity for clinical simulation experiences through nearby Husson University. Our orientation usually lasts 16 weeks for graduate nurses or 12 weeks for experienced nurses. We may extend the orientation until a nurse is ready to handle all the patient types we see. This is one more way we individualize your orientation; we want to be sure you have experience with the proper patient mix. All of our RNs must be advanced cardiac life support-certified (ACLS). Our RNs usually care for two patients, but may have only one if the patient requires that level of care.

Once you are off orientation, we schedule you with more experienced nurses and make sure that our Charge Nurse and Resource Nurse are available to help.