Should Emergency Nursing be part of the Critical Care Nursing Specialty on this site?

I'm new here but I think that Emergency Nursing being thought of as being a critical care specialty shouldn't be an issue. Why is it an issue?

It's a matter of semantics really. What defines critical care?


Also, what is the point of having a Trauma Nursing forum? The ED forum doesn't see TONS of traffic as it is. Just keep it all in the same forum. If there is a post you are not interested in reading, then don't.

I think everyone knows my opinion. There are also alot of non critical pt in our ICU you can be a chronic pt and still stay in the ICU because you have a vent. I have also seen several ICU pt awaiting beds to the floors that are no longer critical. Our place you cannot send any unstable critical pts to the ICU only stable ones they remain in the ED until they die or are stablized.

Just curious why it only includes the ICU/CCU specialties? I mainly work E.R. but also pick up shifts on the ICU as well and this baffles me? I mean who do you think takes care of these patients before they go to ICU? Are they not considered "Critical" until they have a ICU room number despite having ICU orders and sitting in the E.R. for 24hours while waiting for a unit bed? My facility recognizes it and pays us accordingly but just curious why the way it is listed here?

Many don't consider ED nursing to be critical. The hospital I work for doesn't consider us to be specialized critical nurses either and we don't get the pay differential. It really makes us bitter to hold ICU boarders in the ED. Where do you work and can I come?

And, how can anyone think ED nurses aren't specialized critical nurses? We bring people back from death and keep them here. We get to decide who is sick enough to take the MD by the hand and lead him into the room. "That's enough about golf, this pt is SICK!" Have you ever heard an ED nurse say, "Oh, this pt looks bad. We can't take him down here! Send him to fill-in-the-blank."? Is it mandatory at your hospital that ED staff responds to code blue? I wonder why? When trauma pts come in, does EMS bring them to the ED or ICU? Again, why? Is it because half dead people need inferior nursing care? We manage every vital sign, every eyelash flutter, every muscle twitch, every natural body function as we tritrate multiple, lifesaving medications with opposing and potentially serious side effects, often without the benefit of knowing the pt's PMH or even what the hell happened to him to wind up here in our bed WITHOUT REPORT (augh!!!!) and if we miss calculate then people die. Yeah, ED nursing isn't "critical." We can run an ad:

ED NURSING, SO EASY A CAVEMAN CAN DO IT!!!!

This has obviously been a rant. As I have said before, anyone who disagrees or has an opposing view from anything I have just said, we know. Please don't leave a long winded story about when your (blank) was (blank) and you had (blank) and the nurse (blank)....so on and so forth. We get it!!! And you are important to us. Do you see the red X?

OK, sorry, I'm done now and better. I think I'll be okay.

Still vote that ER nursing is not critical care. Yes, we do take care of critical patients, but our focus is stabilize and transfer. And...fully 50% of ER patients aren't even emergencies as we all know.

We do need critical care skills but our focus is resuscitation.

Have to agree with traumaRUs. Majority of the ones I see in ED as PCP are not critical.

Is resuscitation not considered critical care? I am asking because I genuinely don't know. Also, I thought as nurses we tend to swing to the conservative side. That's how we triage and treat pts, right? We use the system of the sickest pt, etc. So, a med-surg nurse without the proper, indepth training can't manage the sickest ED pt, although vice a versa is true, then why aren't we defaulted to the specialty position? Hope this makes sense, I abbreviated my thoughts and am v tired.