CNA in the ER

I worked in an ED during nursing school and the RN's were great about letting me dive in wherever possible. I was lucky because there were several very good nurses who took me under their wings.

I moved on to critical care after a couple of years but the time I spent in the ED turbo-charged my assessment and critical thinking skills. If you can thrive in a busy ED you can do almost anything else in the nursing profession.

There is always plenty to do in a trauma case so don't worry about being able to help.

In some hospitals you may not get to participate in the big trauma cases- in the ER where I work, only two nurses participate in trauma alerts and they have to be TNCC certified members of the trauma team. Which is not to say we don't let anyone else in- we encourage students, etc. to come in and watch but they have to stand on the other side of the room, out of the way. Which makes sense when you keep in mind that there are already an ER doc, a trauma surgeon, an RT, the 2 nurses, and 2 x ray techs swarming the pt.

On the other hand, if its not a trauma alert, but a lesser trauma pt, the more the merrier- no rules about who can play!