Emergency Nursing Areas

[Mary3010]

I am trying to work out what work I could do in emergency nursing. I thought I would ask people who work in this area since you would know best.

1) What area of emergency nursing do you work in? 

2) What are your duties and what is it like?(e.g hours/days, working conditions etc.)?  

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Those are pretty general & vague questions which are easily answered by reading the posts in this sub-forum. What is your real question?

[Mary3010]

3 hours ago, emtb2rn said:

Those are pretty general & vague questions which are easily answered by reading the posts in this sub-forum. What is your real question?

What area in emergency do you work in and what is it like?

[igtgrnokbye]

1) The waiting room

2) Blend in with the rest of the patients so your co workers, boss, and doctors don’t immediately recognize you. But still keep an eye on any real sickies. 

[Mary3010]

On 12/13/2020 at 4:54 AM, igtgrnokbye said:

1) The waiting room

2) Blend in with the rest of the patients so your co workers, boss, and doctors don’t immediately recognize you. But still keep an eye on any real sickies. 

Hahah! So you work triaging patients right? Does that mean you may have to perform first aid duties as well?

[igtgrnokbye]

Uhh no. What’s triaging ?

[Raven Sierra, BSN, RN]

1. I work in the emergency department/emergency room.

2. My duties are those of a staff nurse in an emergency room. Assessing, medicating, monitoring, giving turkey sandwiches...Spoiler alert: it's nothing like TV.

Did you have something specific in mind?

[gere7404, BSN, RN]

I pretty much swab people for covid and do rainbow draws all night before calling ct to scan my patient before giving them Tylenol and sending them home. 

[igtgrnokbye]

6 hours ago, gere7404 said:

I pretty much swab people for covid and do rainbow draws all night before calling ct to scan my patient before giving them Tylenol and sending them home. 

That sounds way more in depth than it needs to be.  We always hear about wanting to increase efficiency. I’d say you could probably trim four of those things to make it work smoother. 

[Mary3010]

On 12/14/2020 at 3:10 PM, igtgrnokbye said:

Uhh no. What’s triaging ?

It's basically just ordering care for patients who need it most in line to those who don't need it so urgently.

On 12/14/2020 at 5:57 PM, Raven Sierra said:

1. I work in the emergency department/emergency room.

2. My duties are those of a staff nurse in an emergency room. Assessing, medicating, monitoring, giving turkey sandwiches...Spoiler alert: it's nothing like TV.

Did you have something specific in mind?

I want to be the nurse who can treat patients who come into emergency with wounds that need dressing, maybe triage, give them IV's, blood transfusions etc., check their vitals, talk to mental health pts in crisis, perform scans like EKG's, give medication etc. So first aid type work + other medical duties.

I am continually searching for answers but going around in circles with confusion. 

 

[igtgrnokbye]

3 hours ago, Mary3010 said:

I am continually searching for answers but going around in circles with confusion

As we get older our mental faculties aren’t what they were, it’s OK. That could also be something else underlying. 

 

 

3 hours ago, Mary3010 said:

I want to be the nurse who can treat patients who come into emergency with wounds that need dressing, maybe triage, give them IV's, blood transfusions etc., check their vitals, talk to mental health pts in crisis, perform scans like EKG's, give medication etc. So first aid type work + other medical duties.

Wow that’s amazing. I certainly feel like someone would let you do all of that for them.  I feel like you’re on the right path. Just beware of gallows humor. 

[SquishyRN, BSN, RN]

6 hours ago, Mary3010 said:

It's basically just ordering care for patients who need it most in line to those who don't need it so urgently.

I want to be the nurse who can treat patients who come into emergency with wounds that need dressing, maybe triage, give them IV's, blood transfusions etc., check their vitals, talk to mental health pts in crisis, perform scans like EKG's, give medication etc. So first aid type work + other medical duties.

I am continually searching for answers but going around in circles with confusion. 

 

As an emergency room nurse I do all of those and more. Some shifts I only do some of those things, other shifts I could end up doing all of those things.  Still not sure what kind of answer you're looking for though.

If you wanted me to literally name every single rote task I do as an ER nurse to the level of detail as "starting IVs, collecting blood specimens, bathing patients, doing EKGs, inserting catheters, performing nasopharyngeal suctioning, performing endotracheal suctioning" etc, etc it would already be a book and still not encompass nearly everything I do because I still do way more than that. Every single day, every single hour could be different. There's no routine, I just roll with the punches. 

In a given day I could be searching the white pages for a patient's family members because they have dementia and were found wandering the streets and social work has gone home for the night, I could be holding up an iPad as a patient about to be intubated says what could be their last goodbyes because they don't know if they'll ever get well enough to get extubated, I could be pulling out an unconscious and pulseless patient out of a car and attempting my best at CPR while rushing them straight to the back, I could also be assigned to the back and be the one receiving said patient and immediately place pads on them so we can see their underlying rhythm and defibrillate if necessary, I could also be sitting doing nothing for 3 hours twiddling my thumbs at my triage desk at the entrance but can't leave to go anywhere or do anything else because it's an emergency room after all and I can't predict when a patient with a gunshot wound through their chest is going to walk through the door.

So yeah, still not really sure what it is you're trying to ask since your questions still remain very vague. Even if you narrowed it down to "describe everything you do in a shift" it still wouldn't begin to describe what I do because literally every day is different. I think at this point the easier question to answer would be "As an ER nurse, what DON'T you do?"