JohnnyTrauma247

If your dream is to be an ER nurse don't be afraid to start in the ER. During orientation just try to make little notes, study order sets (and why they are doing these tests) during your off days, ask questions, and be hands on from the start. You can definitely do it!! I would have never been able to happily work in a different department (like med-surg) and be truly happy, it was ER or bust!! Just be ready to feel overwhelmed immediately and asking yourself, "how do these nurses do it?" It gets easier as you learn, just do a lot of studying on the side and keep notes and questions for yourself to look up when you get home, make friends with the PCT's (ER-techs) many of them have been there for years, they all help a lot and know there stuff! I went straight from nursing school to the largest Level 1 trauma center in Chicago, being a paramedic prior helped a lot though. Anyone thinking about doing the same I would strongly reccomend working as an ER Tech or paramedic to make the transition much more effortles!! Good luck!

After being a paramedic for six years (straight out of high school) I decided to change professions and become an ER nurse (2 years) specifically for this reason. They pay was terrible as a paramedic for the amount of work, stress, physical lifting, and poor job safety (i.e. PD arriving late to scene, patients becoming combative in ambulance- we don't have security like we do in the ED). I miss being a paramedic but also love being an ER nurse and love the bigger paychecks. I worked in a region in which our SMO's were pretty intense (ez IO, surgical crich's, 12-lead ekg etc) I really miss intubating and working a code with one other person (seemed to run a lot smoother than having the MD's, residents, RT, XR, nursing students, medic students, ER techs all in the room talking and shouting at once!) Starting an IV is so much easier in a well lit ED room on a stationary bed than being in a dim ambulance going 50mph over train tracks! I believe pay is cheaper because getting into a paramedic program is so much easier than a nursing program (with a two year wait period) here in chicago, thus yielding more paramedics. I found paramedic school a lot more challenging than nursing school also, nursing school seemed to have a lot more "busy work" and the materials were broken down so you have a little bit at a time instead of in paramedic school where all the same material is crammed into one year compiled with much more clinical/ride time hours.