will robinson

Do not mean to be a downer here, but, as good and knowledgeable as any new grad can be, the ED is daunting. I am a 15 year plus ER dog. I have seen the shear volume and acuity chew up and spit out many new and promising ED nurses. Burn out rate becomes very high. It is a great place to work. It is also an area where you have to crawl before you walk and than run. In the ED you do run. I started med surg one year, ICU one year than ED. This was after 3 years as an orderly in the ED finishing school. I am sure you have better critical thinking skills than you may have been led to believe. The problem with the ED is that many times you do not have the time to think, you have to know and react, this comes with experience. Do not give up your dream, but perhaps your plan could be something like tele level for 6 months to increase your organizational skills and gain that valuable insight needed in a busy ED. Good luck to you.

Would be interested in knowing how your acute care institution handles involuntary commitments that require inpatient medical care before they can go to a psych ward. Do you provide sitters or does hospital or company police stay with the patient. Any policies would be welcome. My hospital is in the process of reworking our policies on how to handle these situations and I realize that individual state laws may come into play. I live in Eastern North Carolina. We would like to be consistent with the rest of the region in which we are located. Thank you in advance for any information you may be able to share. If I should post this question in a different area of the forums will gladly take advice. Regards, Will Robinson

Thanks again for the continued replies. To Joshua, I am from Kentucky, finished college in Michigan and worked there, back to KY and now live on the crystal coast of North Carolina for the past 7 yrs. Worked at a total of 5 hospitals over the years. All have a few variations in P/P, but, all basically the same, doing our best to provide the best care possible for those entrusted to us.

Thanks everyone for your input. Most answers were as expected. The use of IV push meds should be on a monitored unit. My opinion as well. Been a Nurse 20 years, 17 in the ER. Again thanks.

Hello everybody. This is my first post. This looks like a good site for info. My hospital is currently researching use of IV push meds for hypertenison on the med surg units. Anyone out there with what your hospital allows or p/p would be most helpful. Our units use some IV push meds now, however, with the advent of some of the newer drugs the MD's are ordering meds that can only be given on monitored units. You can see that this could cause some problems. Thanks to all who read and respond to this.