Anyone work with NPs who deal with actual emergencies?

[rse3]

I'm very interested in doing an Emergency/Acute Care NP program, and I'm wondering how many of you work with NPs who see real emergencies. In our ED, the NPs mostly see things like earaches, kidney stones, psych pts, etc. I'm not belittling their work, and someone has to do it, but I have no interest in doing that every day for the rest of my life, as traumas and critical pts is what makes me love the ED so much.

I've heard that there are EDs where NPs see pts with real emergencies, but I'm just wondering how common they are. Thanks.

[mmutk, BSN, RN, EMT-I]

Our inpatient NPs do Rapid Response and go to codes in the hospital. None of our ED NPs see any patients out of fasttrack.

[elkpark]

I've worked at a couple of different big, academic medical centers that have NPs on the trauma and CC services (not in the ED, but on those services treating people once they get through the ED and get admitted).

[Lunah, MSN, RN]

When I am not in Afghanistan, I work with an awesome Acute Care Nurse Practitioner in my Army ER. He sees critical patients. As a matter of fact, when I have a real sickie, sometimes I prefer to get him first over the night doc! Lol

[hiddencatRN, BSN, RN]

I used to want to be an ER NP until I saw that they essentially do fast track and ortho stuff. At my ER if they see a sicker patient they're acting more in a resident function than as an independent mid-level.

[BostonFNP, APRN]

I have three colleagues that work in "actual emergencies". One is an FNP on MedFlight. One is an ANP on the trauma surgery team. And the third is an FNP that works in a rural ED and is often the only provider.

As for the OP, gaining so e experience might give you some perspective on what you want to do I the future.

[rse3]

Thanks for all of the input, y'all.

[rse3]

I have three colleagues that work in "actual emergencies". One is an FNP on MedFlight. One is an ANP on the trauma surgery team. And the third is an FNP that works in a rural ED and is often the only provider.

As for the OP, gaining so e experience might give you some perspective on what you want to do I the future.

I've been in the ER for 2.5 years. It's only a level 2 trauma center, but I feel like I've got a pretty good perspective on what I want to do.

I'm not sure why you felt the need to use quotation marks (maybe I'm taking your comment the wrong way, but it seems pretty snarky to me), but I believe it's fair to say that not all patients in an emergency department present with legitimate emergencies.

[BostonFNP, APRN]

I've been in the ER for 2.5 years. It's only a level 2 trauma center, but I feel like I've got a pretty good perspective on what I want to do.

I'm not sure why you felt the need to use quotation marks (maybe I'm taking your comment the wrong way, but it seems pretty snarky to me), but I believe it's fair to say that not all patients in an emergency department present with legitimate emergencies.

I didn't intend to be snarky; I did assume by your post that you were either an RN student or a new-graduate RN. I was wrong about that, so my apologies, the post didn't read like a nurse with 2.5 years of ED experience. Again, my assumption, my apologies.

Outside of a trauma service, I don't think there are many places where you would only see life-or-death emergencies.

[Larry77, RN]

We had a lot of PA's that worked with the Trauma service and some of the other specialties (Surgery, ENT, Urology) but I don't think I've seen many NP's. I'm used to seeing them in the clinic and the Fast-track areas of the ED. I have a couple NP's that work under me in the ED as regular ED RN's because they only work part-time in the clinic doing primary care.

[zmansc, ASN, RN]

In my ED the NP/PA sees the majority of the 4-5s, a fair share of the 3s, and 1-2s when the doc is unavailable or overloaded. FYI, My facility is a rural ED with 10 bed, one doc 24x7, one NP/PA 12x7.

[ReWritten]

I started in a 15-bed rural ED, and the PAs and NPs saw everything - fast track and if the MD was busy, pick up other patients. When I went to a major city ED, they didn't even hire NPs until recently (and she used to work there as an ED nurse, which is how she got in) and I never saw them take on a level 3 or higher. I'm now back in a smaller ED just within the metroplex and the midlevels see everything, so I think it really depends on the system. However, my personal feelings are that the smaller EDs are a little more lax in the rules of how things work.