How to help a med/surg nurse transition to the ED

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Specializes in Critical care, emergency.

Hello! I am currently precepting an experienced med/surg nurse who is transitioning to the ED. I've found that she needs a lot of promoting when it comes to patho, drugs, and anticipating necessary nursing interventions. We recently had a progress meeting where I agreed to make her a study list of the most important patho topics and drugs she needed to brush up on to be successful, particularly with our critical patients. I have some obvious things: sepsis and shock, stemi, pressors, stroke, gi bleed, s/s of drug overdose, s/s of hypoglycemia, DKA. I wanted this forum's opinion on what you might include. We are a 75 bed level 2 trauma center that sees 350-400 patients/day. Thanks in advance.

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Specializes in Emergency.

Sheehy's Manual of Emergency Care, 7e (Newberry, Sheehy's Manual of Emergency Care): 9780323078276: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com

Or any text that organizes the material for the CEN would be a good place to start. You can add/remove and organize what you think should be the proper order for your facility but you should find an excellent outline of the material that any nurse working in an ER setting should be familiar with.

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Specializes in ER, ICU.

Sounds like you have a pretty good list of things to go over with her. One thing you may consider would be covering the Joint Commission Core Measures for the most common disease processes. You can kill two birds with one stone by teaching her the patho/disease processes and at the same time how the JC expects these to be treated. If she's already experienced this may be an easier and more appropriate learning pathway.

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Specializes in Hospice/Infusion.

Where do you find info about what JC expects for ED pts?

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