The highest-acuity nursing units, where a vacancy concentrates on your sickest patients.
Adult medical and surgical patients requiring intensive monitoring, vasoactive drips, and often mechanical ventilation.
Post-operative cardiac surgery — CABG, valve replacement, transplant — plus balloon pumps, Impella and often ECMO.
Post-operative surgical and trauma patients, complex wound and drain management, frequent returns to theatre.
Sepsis, respiratory failure, DKA, hepatic and renal failure, complex medical comorbidity.
Premature and critically ill neonates, from feeder-growers through 23-week micro-preemies depending on level.
Critically ill infants through adolescents — respiratory failure, sepsis, post-operative and trauma.
Undifferentiated patients across all ages and acuities, from fast track through resuscitation.
Major mechanism injury from resuscitation through ICU and step-down, often with surgical and orthopedic involvement.
Patients too complex for med-surg but not requiring full intensive care — titratable drips, close cardiac monitoring.
Cardiac monitoring, chest pain rule-out, arrhythmia management, post-catheterization recovery.
General medical and post-surgical adults across a broad diagnostic mix.
Stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, traumatic brain injury, post-craniotomy, status epilepticus.
They look interchangeable on a job posting and they are not. The workload, the acuity and the equipment change completely between them, and the single most common reason a clinician leaves an assignment early is that the unit turned out to be a different job from the one described.
| Unit | Typical ratio |
|---|---|
| ICU | Typically 1:2, dropping to 1:1 for unstable or proned patients |
| CVICU | 1:1 for fresh post-op hearts, 1:2 once stable |
| SICU | Typically 1:2 |
| MICU | Typically 1:2 |
| NICU | 1:1 to 1:3 depending on acuity level |
| PICU | 1:1 to 1:2 |
| Emergency / ED | Highly variable; 1:4 typical, 1:1 in resuscitation |
| Trauma | Varies by phase of care |
| Step-Down / PCU | Typically 1:3 to 1:4 |
| Telemetry | Typically 1:4 to 1:5 |
| Med-Surg | Typically 1:5 to 1:6 |
| Neuro ICU | Typically 1:1 to 1:2 |
Ask for the actual ratio rather than the posted one, the equipment in use, the shift pattern including how call and weekends rotate, and why the role is open. That last question tells you more than the rest combined — a post open because of growth is a very different assignment from one open because three people left in a quarter.
We ask facilities all of that at intake and pass the honest answer on, including when it is unflattering.
We tell you the rate, the unit and the shift pattern before you commit, and we ask permission before every single submittal — you will never find out you were put forward somewhere after the fact. One recruiter handles you from the first call through to your last shift.
Placement is always free to you. Our fee is paid by the facility. Join the network and we will only call you when something genuinely fits.
Two minutes now saves a dozen irrelevant calls later. We only get in touch when something genuinely matches your specialty, your states and the schedule you actually want.
Tell us your unit and shift preference and we will match you properly.