General Medicine

Nurses in our 39-bed General Medicine unit see a wide range of medical patients whose length of stay ranges from overnight observation to extended stays due to medical complexity. We are a flexible, supportive unit and our staff is committed to caring for medicine patients.

Our patient population includes both acute, acute on chronic and chronic general medical patients, respiratory, renal, gastrointestinal, and diabetic patients. We also have some ventilator-dependent patients and some who have complex, multi-system disorders. We specialize in caring for elderly patients in acute care settings, and offer delirium prevention, fall prevention and cognitive management.

Our young, energetic staff is very supportive and oriented toward teaching. Because we're an academic medical center, you will find many people willing to teach you, and many opportunities to teach others.

Both our Nurse Educator and Care Coordinator provide extensive support for our nurses. Our Nurse Educator is responsible for orientation, development and education as well as certification programs. Our Care Coordinator provides continuity in nursing care.

We have a strong focus on evidence-based practice improvements and have recently implemented bedside reporting.

Some of our nurses have specialized in Diabetes and Geriatrics. They also serve as unit-based resources for all staff. Nurses have the opportunity to advance through the clinical ladder or they can become Care Coordinators, Nurse Educators or Assistant Nurse Managers.

All nurses are invited to participate in our Shared Governance council - although we currently have a waiting list! Our council focuses on quality improvement, education and clinical practice.

Continuing education is provided through nursing and physician grand rounds, an annual education day and many in-unit in-services.

For more information, call Megan Brunovsky at 800-722-9922, option 3, or 802-847-9680 or visit www.fletcherallen.org.

General Medicine

Orientation

RN orientation is a year-long process, with the first 10 weeks dedicated to hospital orientation, systems-level nursing orientation and unit-level clinical experience and didactics. The Nurse Educator is very active in the orientation process. During the first 10 weeks, the new RN is assigned to work with preceptors to learn the routine of the unit, master organizational skills and become confident with the computer applications related to nursing documentation. New RNs will also spend time with ancillary services during this phase to augment their clinical experiences. RNs will spend time with Respiratory Therapy, Invasive Radiology, Endoscopy, and Hemodialysis.