Medsurg nurse transition to ED

[OCRN3]

Is this hard to do? I have heard a lot about medsurg nurses not being able to transition well to ED. Does this hold any truth?

[Guest1030824]

I work on a busy med surg floor and thinking about giving ER a try. However, I'm little hesitant because I want to make sure it is the right thing to do for me. I don't like being a med surg nurse who is charge nurse with 7-8 pts. It's very stressfull and unsafe. I get very stressed out on this floor, and my phone never stops ringing. I'm constantly interrupted. Is Med Surg considered a slower pace floor? I don't want to jump because I want out of this hospital so bad.

I just need to find my niche. ER the wrong place? Any advice?

[NuGuyNurse2b]

Your M/S floor sounds like mine. The ER is just as crazy as that when you have that many patients, but in the ER your acuity is way higher so they actually do cap your assignment or they'll share the wealth. Like you're obviously not going to be caring for all 5 MI's that came through the door; whereas on M/S you could have 5 isolation patients, 2 getting blood, somebody on PRN pain meds Q3hrs, etc and no one would blink because all they see is that you have 5 patients. It's a different beast in ER and I find that it's more chaotic (obviously) but weirdly more controlled than a busy M/S floor. I transitioned to ER from M/S almost a month ago and TBH I would never go back to a regular floor. Some days are bad, but I can honestly say even on my worst ER day, it beats my worst M/S day by a landslide. You treat and release, as they say, and rarely deal with the same thing day in/out like you would have to do on M/S with a chronically ill patient (and their families...). Your priorities are different. It's difficult to explain in words but I love it here.

[mickeyrose912]

I bet you will rock it! In My opinion a good nurse is honest with his or herself regarding what they know and don't know. You aren't expected to know everything. I worked M/S for a year and came to the ER. I was terrfied, hell sometimes there are still things that i have never heard of, but i always ask. I always go on the side of caution, question things and luckily I have been able to prevent negative outcomes for my patients. I fear the nurse that thinks they know it all.

Just know who is your priority. Who will die first? Constantly prioritize and ask questions to keep learning.

You got this!