I Have several questions to ask everyone who's been around a lot longer than myself. I just started my nursing career in a level 1 trauma center in a large teaching hospital and as an ER nurse I find a lot of attitiude coming from everyone.
I have taken many classes at this facility and on several instances have had the instructor say things like, "Oh we have an ER nurse in here I'll have to watch what I say." When I took my PALS class it was taught by the PICU nurses and when I went in for my megacode the instructor said, "OK Mrs. ER nurse lets see how you deal with this one." He made me run the megacode for at least 35-40 minutes and tried everything in his power to stump me, and didn't stop until he did.
My boyfriend is a floor nurse at the same hospital and we often get into discussions about how much the floor nurses complain about us. I try my best to give the best report I can with the focus assessment that I do. I rarely send up a naked patient after a trauma, and always put the patient in bed, get their tele pack on them, and if the patient is soiled, I clean them up before I take them upstairs, or I'll stay to help that nurse clean them if it happened in the elevator (yes it does happen in the elevator and we can't clean it then).
I try the best I can to establish a good repor with nurses from other units, because I believe that communication is key to patient care between departments. I find that I am always courteouse to nurses from other units. We have a 15 minute rule for getting a patient upstairs after report is called. I find that to be very unrealistic and in most cases if I don't need that room right this second, for a major trauma/MI etc I always tell the nurse to just call me when you are ready for them and I'll bring them up. There has been a few times where I had to enforce the 15 minute rule when we had patients in the hallway, and even then I explained the situation and apologized that I would have to bring them up ASAP due to the MI that was lying in the hallway.
I guess what I am asking is, has anyone else encounterd this? I just feel as soon as someone finds out that I am an ER nurse I am automatically disliked and treated differently. We are all nurses and I just wish we could all try and understand each other and work well together. Any tips or suggestions from those of you that have been doing this for a long time on how to keep the peace between departments?
I've been on both sides of that coin. But this [argument] can be compared to the nurse/cna argument. Who does more work? Neither. It all seems to boil down to money, imho. More work is expected of everyone so that we all feel we are over worked, therefore thinking that the other floor, ER, OR, or whomever....has the easier load, because how on Earth can they possibly be working harder than we? I mean, goodness gracious, we can't even take a break! Thing is, we all work hard and simply may have different tasks to do. Just be courteous to different departments, and do your best.
Best answer! We all work hard just have different clients....
I believe your questions regarding ''Er/Medsurge issuses are valid ones.
You state that you did not post to start a debate.
Well,,I have found that sometimes,with a healthy debate,at times also comes resoloution(sometimes).
I do not think the questions that you pose(there very good questions as well),realisticly can avoid a debate.
I as well have worked both sides of the fence.
far back as 1995,,guess what,,same issues.
Same questions,same ole unresloved issues.
It all comes down to the almighty buck.
Hospital wants to save money,so therefore,cut staffing.
Seems to me,If proper staffing were maintained,(ok,a girl can dream,can't she!)then most of the issues would be resolved.
Sounds too easy,doesn't it.
I can honestly say though,all the Er Nurses & Medsurge nurses I worked with,were always great.
I as well would try & hold off long as possible,to give the Medsurge nurse a chance to get one admitted,maybe catch ehr breath too! Before the next came rolling off the elevator.
I worked in Tele,for many,many years & also came across the every same thing,in as far as all the admissions from the Er.
Working in Tele,we also were always sending the pts to Medsurge,because they did not need the services of the Tele Unit,downgraded,& we as well would,most times,,not always recieve the same type of reception as the Er nurses do.
No easy answer,I always think this way,we are ALL nurses,all doing a very stressfull understaffed,lots of times,unappreciated job.
Twin #2 actually, Jen brings up son actual cogent points; the hospitals in Palm Springs region are sucking up like Hoover vacuums toward the well-heeled. Additionally, Southern California has sold itself out to developers who have successfully, as the Eagles summed it up, "raped the land, put up a bunch of ugly boxes & Jesus, people bought 'em". This was a nice State; I was born in L.A.(as were my parents) & remember. Infrastructure, namely healthcare & law-enforcement are an afterthought that is years away; after all, we need all the Walmarts we can get to keep employees p/t so that healthcare in an ER is the only care they can afford. I'm quite good c Pt care however am beyond burnout c a society in which those who ultimately slice & dice funding will never wait 18 hours in an ED, get shovelled out to a snf in 3 days or must sacrifice everything they've ever worked for should they develope a catastrophic illness I'm ready to change professions. Wish I had taken my fathers' advice & joined the LAPD (real pensions, PPO for life) @ 44 I'm too old & love most canines a bit more than many humans.
I think you are envisioning the ER as a place where we have the TIME to sit around. No, we are trying to get the pts to the appropriate care areas so we can take care of the next EMERGENCY in the waiting room.
In my experience, the only people who have time to sit around are the patients, and they're usually the only ones around who DON'T want to be sitting.
come on girls, if you were doing your very best as a nurse and had a good working relationship with your patients, where is all the rest coming from??? We have absolutely NO control over who comes into ED, how long they will be there and where they will be sent - honestly I find ED nurses less bitchy as we are all too busy to go there and work together well as team members in BOTH New Zealand and Australia - the only "edge" I keep as a nurse is when the next patient comes under my care - and that to me is a necessary prerequisite of being a nurse - especially and ED nurse
See, this is the problem with this profession! Everyone thinks that they are better than everyone else. To have the attitude that only ER nurses do any work is completely disrespectful and just plain wrong!
See folks......THIS is the real difference.....ER nurses have a sense of humour,and a taste for irony :rotfl:
See, this is the problem with this profession! Everyone thinks that they are better than everyone else. To have the attitude that only ER nurses do any work is completely disrespectful and just plain wrong!
See folks......THIS is the real difference.....ER nurses have a sense of humour,and a taste for irony :rotfl:
Tim
Obviously you were missing my point. In case you haven't noticed, I am one of the FEW floor nurses that didn't feel the need to slam you or point fingers at ER nurses, yet you feel that you need to retort with some smart a** remark. That attitude is why there is so much negativity towards ER nurses.
Keep your chins up and keep up the good work EVERYONE!
I Have several questions to ask everyone who's been around a lot longer than myself. I just started my nursing career in a level 1 trauma center in a large teaching hospital and as an ER nurse I find a lot of attitiude coming from everyone.
I have taken many classes at this facility and on several instances have had the instructor say things like, "Oh we have an ER nurse in here I'll have to watch what I say." When I took my PALS class it was taught by the PICU nurses and when I went in for my megacode the instructor said, "OK Mrs. ER nurse lets see how you deal with this one." He made me run the megacode for at least 35-40 minutes and tried everything in his power to stump me, and didn't stop until he did.
My boyfriend is a floor nurse at the same hospital and we often get into discussions about how much the floor nurses complain about us. I try my best to give the best report I can with the focus assessment that I do. I rarely send up a naked patient after a trauma, and always put the patient in bed, get their tele pack on them, and if the patient is soiled, I clean them up before I take them upstairs, or I'll stay to help that nurse clean them if it happened in the elevator (yes it does happen in the elevator and we can't clean it then).
I try the best I can to establish a good repor with nurses from other units, because I believe that communication is key to patient care between departments. I find that I am always courteouse to nurses from other units. We have a 15 minute rule for getting a patient upstairs after report is called. I find that to be very unrealistic and in most cases if I don't need that room right this second, for a major trauma/MI etc I always tell the nurse to just call me when you are ready for them and I'll bring them up. There has been a few times where I had to enforce the 15 minute rule when we had patients in the hallway, and even then I explained the situation and apologized that I would have to bring them up ASAP due to the MI that was lying in the hallway.
I guess what I am asking is, has anyone else encounterd this? I just feel as soon as someone finds out that I am an ER nurse I am automatically disliked and treated differently. We are all nurses and I just wish we could all try and understand each other and work well together. Any tips or suggestions from those of you that have been doing this for a long time on how to keep the peace between departments?
I have worked as an ER nurse for several years and have worked in hospitals from Level One Trauma Centers to 6 bed "Po-dunk" ERs in the middle of no where. The one thing that I have found common in all of these is the floor nurses do not like to ER because they always cause more work for them. You never call to take a patient from them always to give them one.
Also, some ER nurses are quite arogant in their abilities. Where else in the hospital can you be taking care of a 2 year old with a fever in one bed and a GSW to the chest in another and be able to do both well. Not that you are arogant but you may have predcessors who were.
You are also considered an adrenaline junkie who craves major traumas. Some of the nurses may just be jealous because they could not do what you do. I have had students come to the ER, who work in some capacity on the floor, and they have told me after one our usual 12 hours of hell that the nurses on the floor just do not understand.
I am now a DON and I can honestly say that looking at all units, each are unique and each has their own little quirks and each think they are worse or better than the next. I can tell you that we are all necessary. Don't let it get you down, keep doing the best you can do. Remember there are ER Nurses and Nurses who work in the ER. Make up your mind which you want to be and do the best you can.
honestly I find ED nurses less bitchy as we are all too busy to go there and work together well as team members in BOTH New Zealand and Australia
I don't know how bitchy the ED nurses are at my hospital, but it does get pretty bad on my floor, so well said! I get tired off all of the complaining and back-stabbing that goes on in my unit, but I guess that's what I get for being in a female dominated profession. :)
I read the first three pages of responses, and sorry to those I didn't read, but this argument has gone on way too long!!. I have been a nurse for 31 years, all of them spent in acute care setting and the same argument has been going on for all my career. I have worked med-surg, ICu and now in ER nurse and all I can say is CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG!!!.
In my opinion, every area is a specialty area, including med-surg. We all have knowledge and skills we can share. And in each area we will find our frustrations. Some problems we can solve, and need to solve. Some problems are beyond our control, ie the volume of patients and their individual medical problems, and when they "show up".
I worked Triage yesterday, relatively busy day. Several of the patients had acute problems, some have had their complaint for three weeks , three months.etc. Why did those people wait so long, and why did they choose to pick yesterday as the day to show up??? Not in our control.
I triaged "five" patients between 8AM and 9A but between 10 and 11 Am there were "15" patients (numbers hypothetical)...Why the imbalance? Not in our control. By the end of the twelve hour shift I had gone through 3+ boxes of thermometer probes ( my way of counting volume) And these were just the "walk-ins" not the ambulance patients. Not in our control..
One patient came in because he only urinated a little bit from 8PM the previous night, and thought he was having a "blockage" problem..wanted to be taken care of early so he could go home to visit with his grandchildren who he last seen in June.....his heart rate was 33..and he ended up in ICU with renal failure/heart block dual diagnosis... Not in our control
So why don't we just recognize that each area has its difficulties, we do all get slammed from time to time. and know that there are days that we will impose on each other, but there are also days that we repay each other.
ER nurses do take two-three pages of "routine orders" for admission even though they may not be any "stats". We do try to get the patients to the CT scans before they go to the floor.
We don't time the admits, we contact the admitting physician, wait for him'her to call back..sometimes they call back right away, sometimes they call back as they can (between office patients),. sometimes they say wait until I come in to exam, sometimes its wait until the consult comes in...the "I'll be right there" scenario...all of which is not in our control.
So why are we on each other's cases when most of our frustrations are not anything we have control over...they are the nature of the business that we are in..
and we should always keep the lines of communication open ..because that is something we can control.
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sayitgirl
210 Posts
Best answer! We all work hard just have different clients....