ER vs ED

[SpacemanFL]

Was it really a good idea to change the name? Seems to me like if you tell someone you are an ED nurse they may get the wrong idea... as in Erectile Dysfunction instead of Emergency Department, lol! Should make for some good jokes though!

[DeadHeadRN, BSN, RN]

there is a hospital near where I work that uses ECU - emergency care unit

My hospital has an ECU - but it stands for Eternal Care Unit. Yes folks, that would be the morgue. I work at a Catholic hospital, so I guess that's why they call it that.

ER and ED are used interchangeably where I work. Throughout the rest of the hospital we are referred to as the ER, when someone is paged overhead they are paged to the ER, my name badge says Emergency Room and actually we in the ER call it the "room." That being said I think it's just an old school term that people never lost. We have 45 beds (not including the hall "beds" that are usually full) so we are a decent sized ED. All of our paper work says Emergency Department on it and all of our admins have cards and signs on their doors that say ED. Maybe we're just confused where I work.