Acute Dialysis to ER Nursing?

[magnum68]

Hi, I'm a RN and I work as an acute dialysis nurse. That is the only nursing that I have done since I started working as a nurse. We lost our contracts and will be out of a job in a matter of weeks. Lately I have been considering doing ER nursing. I don't want to be trained by a hospital because then I would have to sign a contract and work the days that they schedule me. I did that in the past when I was trained in dialysis. Luckily my local community college offers an emergency nursing course for RNs. in fact, local, reputable hospitals send their employees to that program to have them trained to work in the ER. It's 3 weeks long, 8 hrs a day, 5 days a week. I don't mind paying for the class out my own pocket because it will save me from signing a contract at a hospital.

My question is, are there any dialysis nurses that left dialysis to go into ER nursing? I would love to hear your stories or feed back. Thanks everyone.

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I'm puzzled. You're saying this 3 week class prepares you to hit the ground running as an ER nurse? I find that hard to believe. And you indicate that you would skip the hospital "training" and work per diem (which is what I think your comment about scheduling means).

3 weeks sounds fine for an experienced ER nurse to come up to speed, but I'm not sure about an who doesn't have an ER background. Just sounds strange.

Good luck.

[magnum68]

I'm puzzled. You're saying this 3 week class prepares you to hit the ground running as an ER nurse? I find that hard to believe. And you indicate that you would skip the hospital "training" and work per diem (which is what I think your comment about scheduling means).

3 weeks sounds fine for an experienced ER nurse to come up to speed, but I'm not sure about an who doesn't have an ER background. Just sounds strange.

Good luck.

Hi emtb2rn, and thank for your comment. This program is indeed 3 weeks long and some of our local hospitals send their newly hired ER nurses without ER background to complete this program. I guess the hospitals save time and money this way. I wouldn't start off per-diem because hospitals will only hire per-diem if they have a certain amount of ER experience. I did speak with a nurse manager at a hospital where I want to work as an ER nurse and they told me that they do accept RNs that complete that program but only for part time or full time positions. Most of the hospitals now, here is south Florida, don't offer their own ER training/internship programs anymore. I guess cause of the economy. But I do understand why you think 3 weeks may not be enough but there's very little choice down here now.