Alyssa Queen

Newish ER nurse here, with a few years previous floor experience. Funny enough, I’m interested in going ER to ICU. I Agree with what was said before. It’s a very different flow of nursing. Also it depends on the facility. I actually like the chaos, but I also work at a teaching hospital (and level I trauma county hospital) and that’s the part I don’t like- Normal Er chaos + lots of students/residents is really a struggle for me as I am still learning so much myself and the POC is always changing from all the different providers involved and the hierarchy of them. Also I am having difficulty being “less thorough” in some ways, if that makes sense? Like I’m having trouble not treating them like floor patients and making sure every thing is done 100%. I mean, sure that’s the goal in a perfect world. The floor nurses love getting pts/report from me, but it’s killing me to do it all (also we never have aids or techs). Especially when your turning over pts and then suddenly 1-2 of them turn ICU acuity and you’ve still got 2 other pts to worry about or admits/discharges to manage. For me, I enjoy the higher acuity pts I sometimes get in the ER but want more structure like an ICU. I know a bit opposite of your situation, but maybe that will help give you more ideas on what you might like/dislike ?