Hate med/surg is ED any different?

[RNKX]

I've come to the conclusion that I really dislike Med/surg! The workload is extremely heavy and feel overworked! I've always had good work ethics and love fast paced situations... But med/surg is just stressful! I've always wanted to work in ED but wondering if I should even apply knowing how crazy/stressful inpatient med/surg is! Is the ED any different? Thanks in advance for your insight!

This! I hate how a med-surg floor limits the things a nurse can do and learn. ER nurses seem to be able to do much more with their patients. There are skills I want to learn but cant because of where I am. Nurse education on my unit is a joke. Excited to go to the ED, as I know it will open up another world.

That the floor nurses are restricted in their practice is an acknowledgement of the nature of the floor... the patients are too spread out, both physically and temporally, to have the bandwidth required to attend to tasks like titratable drips. It's the same reason that we prioritize moving the sickest ICU players out of the ED as soon as we can... they need a level of nursing care that's hard for us to provide.

It's true, though, that the ED provides ample opportunity for skill and knowledge development simply due to the throughput and because we're the first contact.

I've come to the conclusion that I really dislike Med/surg! The workload is extremely heavy and feel overworked! I've always had good work ethics and love fast paced situations... But med/surg is just stressful! I've always wanted to work in ED but wondering if I should even apply knowing how crazy/stressful inpatient med/surg is! Is the ED any different? Thanks in advance for your insight!

I dislike med-surg (and would thoroughly detest LTC) because it gets monotonous and tiresome. I am often much more overworked in the ED than I was on the floor but that's precisely why I prefer the ED. It tends to be very diagnostic and problem focused rather than recuperative. The medical model dominates the ED and I find it much more satisfying.

For the most part, I care not to know much about the lives of the patients. Rather, I simply want to treat their current acute issues and leave the remainder to other parts of the system.

My favorite times at work are when things are crashing down upon us. I enjoy the pace of trauma and medical codes, and I even derive some satisfaction by successfully working with acutely psychotic and/or intoxicated patients. When I'm saddled with floor patients waiting for beds, I struggle to keep my energy level up.

My experience is that the ED is far more crazy/stressful than is inpatient med/surg. You might prefer an ICU gig (which would generally bore me) or even an OR gig.

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

But wait, here's EMS bringing your stroke and the triage nurse just pulled your abd pain out into the hallway with your acute MI. The floor can't take report, your ICU hold is tanking. I think your seizure pt in bed 1 just went endo over the seizure pads.. Did I just see a bed bug?

That was yesterdays shift. "Hey emtb2rn, i know you're in with that septic icu hold but your seizure guy is seizing again. And you've got a new one in the hallway".

[ZooMommyRN, ADN, RN]

You forgot the pcp overdose yelling on his way down the hallway tied to the gurney lol

And this is why I made the leap to a Peds ER lol every now and then I think I miss the adult side, peek at their census and realize NOPE! overdoses are few and far between, the occassional ETOH is a teen that quickly realizes they are not in Kansas anymore and will play by the rules, once in a while family members try to run the show and are quickly reminded of the rules by security, yep love the land of little people

[tarotale]

And this is why I made the leap to a Peds ER lol every now and then I think I miss the adult side, peek at their census and realize NOPE! overdoses are few and far between, the occassional ETOH is a teen that quickly realizes they are not in Kansas anymore and will play by the rules, once in a while family members try to run the show and are quickly reminded of the rules by security, yep love the land of little people

i admire ped nurses. psych and kids, would like to avoid them at all cost! i hear they get better pay though... but then, them kids are too different than big people, i hit my forehead when i get peds in my room

[NurseOnAMotorcycle, ASN, RN]

Also as Altra said in another thread, by the time we discover that someone has c. Diff, TB, bedbugs/scabies, etc, we've already been taking care of them for some time.

[zmansc, ASN, RN]

But wait, here's EMS bringing your stroke and the triage nurse just pulled your abd pain out into the hallway with your acute MI. The floor can't take report, your ICU hold is tanking. I think your seizure pt in bed 1 just went endo over the seizure pads.. Did I just see a bed bug?

^^^^This!^^^^

I love it when you call the ICU to give report and they tell you they can't take the patient because it would be unsafe staffing, yet you have 3x the load! The ER nurse doesn't get to tell the inbound MI were too busy, go somewhere else! On the positive side, you finally get to catch your breath when your relief gets there, and you realize once you finally get a bathroom break you probably lost 3-4 lbs due to all the running you did and not having had time to eat for 12 hours :) lol

[btab3]

^^^^This!^^^^

I love it when you call the ICU to give report and they tell you they can't take the patient because it would be unsafe staffing, yet you have 3x the load! The ER nurse doesn't get to tell the inbound MI were too busy, go somewhere else! On the positive side, you finally get to catch your breath when your relief gets there, and you realize once you finally get a bathroom break you probably lost 3-4 lbs due to all the running you did and not having had time to eat for 12 hours :) lol

haha. Lost 20 lbs my first 4 months in the ER :) I am shriveling away...save me ?