New(ish) Graduate at Emory University Hospital

[miaara]

I was recently offered a Staff nurse position in the ED at Emory. I am not in the new graduate program. What is the ED orientation like? What are the expectations?

[DavidDudley]

Depends on the hospital. The ED orientation at my hospital involved me working side by side with a nurse for 3 months. Initially I mainly assisted the nurse as I learned the system until I eventually started taking on 2 patients on my own. As I got used to managing 2 patients I eventually started managing 4. I'm in california so we are 4:1 ratio.

As far as expectations goes, don't expect to know everything you need to know within your short orientation period. It takes at least 2 years to truly feel comfortable working ED. Don't be afraid of mistakes, embrace them (unless of course the mistake involves doing serious harm to a patient). A big part of the learning process in the ED is making mistakes.

Always ask questions, you will learn a lot from asking questions from other staff.

Expect to be slammed when you least expect it. In the ED, when it rains it pours. Try to be as proactive as possible and do even the little things when you are ahead, because when you are slammed, even the smallest task becomes unreachable to do.

During orientation, focus on learning how to prioritize. This is key because when you are on your own your going to have multiple patients, families, doctors, charge nurses, all trying to get you do things for them all at the same time. You have to be able to decipher what is important and requires your immediate attention and what can wait.

I think the quality of your orientation depends strongly on your preceptor and how many questions you ask. Alot of times the preceptor does most of the work for you. Try to get as much hands on experience during orientation as possible, mainly when it comes to IV's. Get as much practice with them as possible, and if you don't get a stick, ASK someone how you can better your approach and then watch how they do it. It took me 8 months to start getting 90%+ of my sticks and I probably wouldn't have had such a steep learning curve with them had I just asked more questions.

Congrats on your new job. Being an ED nurse is an honor. :)