mamao4

How do you get around having no hall beds?! That is GREAT!!!!

Thank you! I know that I have a great team to work with as well, but when we are all busy on a bad day and getting creamed by EMS coming in, it is hard for us to help each other. I am very fortunate to work with the people that I do work with and I agree with you that it makes all the difference in the world!

Just wondering...I work in an ER that sees approximately 150+ patients per day. What is your typical patient load? If we are staffed well, we will have 3:1 in our "critical" rooms and then 4:1 in our "regular" rooms. On a bad day, we have 5:1 no matter where you are. Sometimes I feel like my license is flapping in the wind when I have two patients that are ICU candidates and then 2-3 others that are just there for general illness. Just trying to see if anyone else is in the same boat!

Easy to say, but hard to do. Realize that you are only one person and you have to constantly prioritize your patients. You cannot be in every room at one time. When you feel overwhelmed, step back and prioritize, set a game plan and go for it! It helps me to keep index cards for my "to do" list and to keep up with pt meds and procedures. Good luck and I'm sure you will do great!

I love it when people come into the ER and tell me they have been "vomiking" all day.:barf01: I also had a pt that came in stating that she was constipated for the past two weeks and then her son's girlfriend piped up and said, "Yeah and you even took two anemas today" The doc and I looked at each other and it dawned on us at the same time that she was saying "enema"!!! :chuckle

forgot about this one...family brings elderly pt in because they "overdosed"....on Aricept! How many did they take? TWO pills!!!!

True story..."I brought my son in because he watched a scary movie last night and his stomach has been hurting ever since!" - NOTHING was wrong with this 4yo! Discharged within minutes pt comes in with c/o elbow pain. pt's dog hit pt's elbow with its head and it hurt really bad. "I take morphine for chronic back pain but it isn't helping my elbow!" Are you KIDDING me?

This one is from the view of an EMT...0300 and dispatched for lac to arm. We are thinking it is probably just a papercut. Someone that resembled Sissy Spacek (sp?) in Carrie with blood all over her, is flagging us down. It looks like Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the living room. About 7 people standing around crying/screaming and drunk/high. 20yo lying on the floor and claiming that he punched the window. No lacs on him except for the one that was going straight across his bicep and sliced through his brachial artery. Muscle hanging out of his arm. Finally got him loaded, and he was afraid to get an IV. His arm is almost severed and he is about to bleed out, but he is afraid of a needle stick! Ended up biting through the IV tubing on the way to the hospital...mom begged us to take him to a different hosptial than we thought he should go to because she didn't like the hsopital of our choice. She even offered to pay extra...lol. Did I mention she was three sheets to the wind? Ended up kid's LOC kept declining and he was going into shock. Took him to the hospital of mom's choice and they couldn't do anything for him but stabilize him and call for flight to take him to the hospital we wanted to take him to in the first place! But don't take our advice! Girlfriend in the ambulance was screaming the whole way to the hospital wondering if he would lose his arm....nevermind his arm! What about his life? Never did find out what happened to him after flight...all I know is that it took about an hour to decon the ambulance!:barf01:

I am a nursing student (striving to be an ED nurse...I know, I'm a glutton for punishment!) and I also work for an ambulance service. I have enjoyed reading all of these "rules"! Speaking from the student side of this matter, I appreciate the humor in this and take it at face value. It makes me admire the ED nurses even more. Speaking from the "real world"/EMT side of this, I would hate to tell Sugar and that seattlerosie person some of the things that the EMT's and Paramedics say about some of the people that we bring in! If you don't have a sense of humor in this line of work, you might as well hang it up! You will never make it through. It takes a special type of person to be a nurse and it's people like Sugar that ruins it for the rest. You really do need to lighten up and not take things so personally. Are you also the one in your class that answers ALL of the instructor's questions because you want to show off your book knowledge? There's one in every class. I will have to agree with the RN's that have responded (the ones that already have their license). You need to actually BE a nurse in the ED and be working on your own (not with a preceptor or in an orientation). Every party needs a pooper....