Emergency Nurse Info Please

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Specializes in Emergency.

Hello everyone,

I hope you all do not mind me posting here but, I am very interested in learning more about emergency nursing! I am a student right now and almost done with school (thank goodness) a friend of mine has been in my last two clinical rotations telling me how amazing the ER is. I have been googling ER nursing but would love opinions! What are the pros and cons? What do you absolutely love about ER nursing? It is appealing to me because I love a fast paced environment. I do well with quick thinking and love the variety of situations I could be in. I got to tour the trauma room in my last clinical and I just thought, "this would be an awesome place to work!"

Thank you in advance!

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As a newer nurse working in ER I feel overwhelmed a lot. I like fast paced but there are times it is too fast paced for my being fairly new in the field. My ED is huge (96 beds) and high acuity. I started in a 12 bed ED with fairly low acuity. I love my job though. See if you can shadow or do a preceptorship to make sure it is for you.

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Specializes in Emergency.

Awesome! Thank you! That is a great idea to shadow someone, I should ask next time I go to clinical. Where I live, we have two hospitals that are level one trauma centers. Eventually I would like to get the emergency nurse certification and be a flight nurse! I know I probably will not get hired as a new nurse in the ER but I still like to have a plan :)

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Specializes in ED.

Shadowing is a great way to get a taste of the ER.

I would, however, not mention a thing about being a flight nurse. Go as an observer and say you just want to get an idea of how the ER works and to see if it might be something that interest you.

Every single time we have a student in our ER he/she says that same thing about being a flight nurse. We just roll our eyes. Yeah, kinda poor behavior, but it makes some ER nurses think you think you are better than we are. *I* personally don't do it but I've seen my co-workers do it. We kinda feel like you gotta crawl before you can run.

And if you want to be a flight nurse, that's great. Just prepare yourself for EMT school and at least 5 years of trauma experience before most companies will even look at you.

In the meantime, do a search on this board for dozens of threads about ER nursing.

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Specializes in Emergency.

Thanks for the advice! I completely understand crawling, before walking and running! I am completely open to all kinds of nursing! I am definitely not a student who thinks they are better than anyone! I see some students around me who do, do that though and I give them the same eye roll lol I just like to get all the information I can about something even if it is in the very distant future. Thanks everyone for the info! I love talking to you nurses and getting perspective on things!

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Just FYI. Don't sell yourself short. Some ED's hire new grads and train them. Build your resume and interviewing skills, and be ready to jump when the opportunity presents itself.

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I like the variety of the ED. I also like the collegial relationship that tends to exist between the docs and the nurses. Finally, I like the career stability... ED tends to be a high turnover department so there are usually ample job opportunities.

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Specializes in Emergency.

That is great to know! I did not think that the ER would hire new grads. But then again, I have to listen to my clinical instructor tell us how hard it will be to find any job as a new grad lol

Thank you all so much!

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My ED only rarely hires new grads. the ample opportunities of which I was speaking were for experienced ED nurses.

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ED tends to be a high turnover department so there are usually ample job opportunities.

What do you attribute that to?

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Stress and overwhelmed. Plus staffing issues. In general, the ED has a high turnover.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses

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