ER VS ICU NURSING

Specialties Emergency

Published

hi, I'm a second year RN student and I eventually want to be an ICU nurse or an ER nurse, but I want to know which of the two really requires the most experience, highest skill set, and highest knowledge base? and which one pays more and works less??

Im just wondering so I can have an idea when I get out of school, thanks! =)

:coollook:

I think ICU requires a wider knowledge base. Some patients that come in to the ER will eventually become ICU patients if they are sick enough to be admitted, so you will need to know some critical care interventions if you work in the ER. You won't know what you like until you try it. I suggest doing some shadowing on both units and see which one you enjoy more.

So I've been in the ER for almost 7 years. You get a great skill base. You will learn your strengths and weaknesses. Currently I'm trying to transfer to the icu unit. I've learned now what I wasn't to do. The ED is wonderful for that. Either a. You become a "lifer" which are those ed nurses that never lease the ed. B. You hate the ed and want to get as far away as possible from it. C. Go to some other critical care unit or even a med surg unit. I hated nursing school with a passion, the worst part was clinical when nurses kept saying get a year of med surg. Well I did that as a cna and hated it. I loved the ed and icu. It was amazing. Such a rush. I don't think I'll ever go to do med surg. I started in the ed as a new grad. I learned pretty quickly when I sent my patients to be admitted to medsurg I could care less about the plan of action. However, my critical patients, those that have been intubated or have blood pressures in the 50s, the ones you can't leave the room.... Well I discovered when it was time to take them up I wanted to stay!!! I didn't want to let that critical thinking and fast paced work go. Only to return to an ed with all my rooms full, and my other non critical patients upset because I was unable to get their warm blanket. Please make no mistake in believing med surg and icu are the same. Icu is not the place to get a good skill base. A good time to learn how to put in an iv on someone with crappy veins is not when they are crashing with a hr of 190, and bp of 60/36. This is in no way a place to get a skill base. ER is a bit better for new grads because all your patients won't be sick. You may have a few but the majority (depending on where you work) are back pains, cuts, broken bones, abdominal pain, falls, but occasionally you will get a bad trauma, heart attack, stroke. The good thing is when something like that happens you have like 6 people and a physician right there. You won't be alone. But in icu, you better know your stuff, docs don't like being paged at 4am. Just my opinion. Take from it what you want :)

Specializes in Outpatient Psychiatry.

In the hospital I presently work in, ER nurses are considered and paid as critical care nurses. There isn't a procedure done in the ICU that isn't done (if only lasting for a few moments) in the ER (here). However, there are countless procedures and interventions done in the ER that aren't done in the ICU. I use the terms procedures and interventions because it's not so much what you know as a nurse as it is what you do. I'm nearly done with unit nursing (fortunately), and I've discovered that science and thinking don't take place so much as running chaotically around doing hands on stuff (which I don't care anything about).

I say all of this because I am neither an ER nurse nor a critical care nurse at heart. I am merely only employed in the ER to have a job. I have no bias towards anything, but I would consider ER nurses as the tip of the spear, as it were.

My hospital wants nurses to have 1-2 years experience before working in the ER, so I would say it requires more experience of the two. Patients in the ER are a lot of the time 'undiagnosed' and you as the nurse are the first person assessing them. This is where experience comes in to play. Experienced nurses know what MI, DVT, PE, pneumo, etc looks like, and they will know that they need to notify the ER doc STAT when they see one of these things.

I agree with others, if you are looking for which job is easier, you may need to switch professions because nursing isnt easy in any area that I have seen.

I have a cousin who has worked ICU, TELE, CCU and now ER at the same facility in the NY Metro area. She says she is very happy now because you stabilize them and they are gone. She says it's the least paper work she has ever had and it was a come up in pay for her. Was it due to past experience or the position... that I do not know.

Specializes in Geriatrics, Emergency Nursing.

I work in the emergency department in a hospital with a very small ICU. Most of the time, ICU level patients stay in the ER when there is no bed available for them to be admitted, so we function as an ICU nurse as well, on top of our other 3 sometimes unstable new patients. ER is busy, and can be overwhelming. ER nurses are expected to function as well as all other specialty unit nurses combined.

Specializes in Emergency, Trauma, Critical Care, Flight.

In my humble opinion, if you really want to get the most pay for the least work, stay as far away from any kind of hospital nursing. It doesn't matter where you are, M/S, ED, ICU, etc, you will work long hours and some days feel so exhausted that you don't even know if you can stay awake long enough to get to your car. I've worked ER's for years, and love the complex and sometimes chaotic atmosphere, so I know I'm where I am supposed to be. My advice to you, become a clinic nurse, like a derm clinic, peds clinic, or small family practice clinic. You won't get paid anywhere near as much, but your patient load will be much less. Do you really want to be a nurse? If your priority is merely a paycheck, do everyone a favor, and don't go into anything dealing with patient care. Maybe a RN in an insurance company, or a company that does drug tests, so you never have to treat a patient. Because if you are going to be dealing with patient's lives, where your attention to a patient's condition may be the difference between a good outcome and a sentinel event, I honestly think a nurse who wants to put forth the least effort for his/her paycheck should not be in a stressful, complex clinical setting.

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