New Grad Starting in ED - Advice on Good Assessments - Page 3

Wow congrats everyone! I'm still trying..applied to about 350 jobs so far since may Wish I had so good contacts...NY is hard!!!

How does one know who needs a full head-to-toe and who just needs a focused assessment? For, say, a hand laceration, I wouldn't really need to listen to heart and lung sounds. I guess it's just a judgement call, isn't it?

If the lac came in with uncontrolled bleeding, I'd say you should focus on getting the bleeding under control first... but never think that you don't need to pay attention to other systems/body parts. You never know what freak things could happen in a situation, or what underlying conditions a person might have. Just because someone has a hand lac doesn't mean they can't have something else going on.

We had an ankle injury come in once who turned out to have ragingly high blood sugar. Known, non compliant diabetic. Ended up being a lot more than an X-ray and splint.