New ED Resident

Published

Specializes in Emergency.

Hi ED nurses! I have been reading through the posts on here for the last few days waiting to hear back from the job I desperately wanted... Well, I got it! so not I am a new ED resident and solemnly promise not to act as a know it all crazy resident as so many of you have stated you despise with good reason - This is mostly because after I got over the excitement I got scared. I am the kind of person who will not do something unless I know how for sure and have no qualms with asking for help... I am so excited, nervous, hopeful! Just wanted to share with other people who have been here in this exact spot before. With the economy the way it is I wasn't expecting to get my dream job, but here I am - feeling like I've been given the best opportunity to learn I could ask for.:)

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Specializes in ER/ MEDICAL ICU / CCU/OB-GYN /CORRECTION.

Congratulations and hope this serves all of your learning need and is all you hoped it to be :)

Marc

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Specializes in Cardiovascular, ER.

Congrats! I wish you the best and hope you love the ER as much as I do: )

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Specializes in Public Health, TB.

Congrats on your new position. :yeah:

I'm not an ED nurse, but please have respect for the staff to whom you send patients.

We all want the best for the people we are caring for. Shift change really is a cr@ppy time to transfer a patient, if you can at all help it. :)

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Specializes in Emergency.

Thanks guys! I will keep that in mind nursej22, I can see how that would be problematic!

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Grats! It'll be a ride! I started in the ER straight out of school and it can be a challenge... but definitely doable!

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Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.

Congratulations! I hope it all goes well for you and if I can give one piece of advice to help keep the nurses from wanting to strangle you ;)... if you work in an ER that's anything like mine and have frequent fliers that show up daily.. please don't order their 85th million dollar work up of the year b/c they c/o toe pain, or better yet, abdominal pain x 8yrs but are eating cheetos. lol.. :D

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Specializes in Emergency, ICU.
I'm not an ED nurse, but please have respect for the staff to whom you send patients.

We all want the best for the people we are caring for. Shift change really is a cr@ppy time to transfer a patient, if you can at all help it. :)

Ok, I'm sure this horse has been beaten to death, but I don't care about shift change. I have 30 patients in the waiting room waiting for an ED bed and the inpatient bed is ready. Take the patient and deal with it. Please respect your ED colleagues who are super busy and have a charge nurse breathing down their neck about that bed that's been ready for 30 minutes and report hasn't been called yet... Take report and go home. The next shift will have to do the admission. It's the nature of the beast. :idea:

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Specializes in Public Health, TB.
Ok, I'm sure this horse has been beaten to death, but I don't care about shift change. I have 30 patients in the waiting room waiting for an ED bed and the inpatient bed is ready. Take the patient and deal with it. Please respect your ED colleagues who are super busy and have a charge nurse breathing down their neck about that bed that's been ready for 30 minutes and report hasn't been called yet... Take report and go home. The next shift will have to do the admission. It's the nature of the beast. :idea:

I'll keep this in mind when Joint Commission questions why I didn't bother with a safe patient hand-off between shifts and why I didn't double check my high-risk gtts with the oncoming shift. "The ED is super busy, we don't have time for safety!"

And when my manager comes down on me for OT because I stayed to transfer my unstable ED admit to ICU because they arrived at shift change and the oncoming RN didn't know anything about them, I will remind her that there were 30 patients in the waiting room.

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Specializes in Emergency.

guys don't fight on my thread!

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Specializes in Emergency, ICU.

It's not a fight BackpackingRN, its reality.

Unfortunately, hospital administrators have no idea what things are like at the bedside. I feel an easy solution would be to overlap shifts by 15 mins at the very least. Hand-off doesn't take that long if you know how to prioritize your assessments and know what to tell the next nurse. When I take a block of patients I listen to hand-off, sure, but I also immediately go to each of my patients and do my own quick assessment. I read nursing notes, I read doctor's orders, I review meds given, previous medical history, allergies, test results, etc. I don't rely on someone's report because not all nurses are as attentive to the things I consider important as I am.

I think its ridiculous that managers expect the shift nurse on the floor to admit the patient. If a patient comes up the floor at 7:05 pm, your shift is over and your hand-off should be finished. If you're not having time to do that, then you need to do something about it and talk to management instead of hating on the ED nurses.

Just my thought... peace out!

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