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Hello! I love seeing interest in Trauma Nursing. I am a trauma nurse in a level 1 trauma center. Our most common mechanisms are auto accidents due to the two major interstates that go through our town. In our ED we have the set trauma nurses that have the extra training and experience. One of the criteria of being a trauma nurse in our facility is 2-3 years level 1 trauma ED experience as well as additional training and certifications. They require CEN, ATCN, and ATCN Instructor on top of your basic ED certs such as ACLS and PALS. We care for more than just traumas. If there are no traumas then the trauma nurse floats around the ED and helps the other staff with their patients. We also care for the sick medical patients such as septic shock, OD's that require advanced airways, sick DKA patients, and any other sick critical medical patient. Trauma nurses require a lot of additional experience, training, and education but the payoff is being able to care for the sickest of the sick. I know this is a tad late but good luck in your endeavors!

Agreed with traumaRUs. If you want to work ED you will want to reconsider ACNP as they can't see children. Typically if you want to do ED you'll want your FNP. Our trauma services and intensive care NPs are however ACNP. Vanderbilt does however have a dual certification program that emphasizes emergency medicine if you are willing to drop the coin and travel.

WGU was great. Pretty easy really. The 90 hour practicum comes and goes easily. You just have to log all your hours of community outreach. Such as interviewing people, going to city council meetings, and so on. All of the classes are really well put together. The hardest part is self motivation. There are no teachers making sure you get things done every week. You do have a mentor that keeps tabs on you but it really is up to you to do the work. I went from my ADN to BSN in 3 semesters. 1st and 2nd semester was 12 credits each and my third was 10 credits. I could have easily done it in 2 semesters even with working a full time job with kids but instead I wanted to go on a lot of vacations. The papers really aren't that bad. The universities online resources are all you will need. Great databases for journals and primary resources. The toughest paper in my opinion was for the evidenced based research class. It was long but I actually really enjoyed doing the research and learning so much about the topic. Good luck in your education!

In most hospitals CEN will get you into a job faster than BSN. The exception is in Magnet status hospitals or hospitals working towards Magnet status. And that is only because of HR's algorithms for employment. There is a reason our hospital gives you a .50 cent raise for BSN and a .75 cent raise for CEN. If you are certified in a department it shows you have experience and knowledge in that department. BSN just shows you have more school... Just look into the hospital you want to work for and see what they would prefer. In my hospital we are a Level 1 trauma center and I got hired in the ED with only having an ADN and experience in the ED and I beat out BSN Candidates with no ED experience. It's all about the hospital preference...

Your size won't be an issue at all, if anything it will be a blessing in the er. There is nothing better than having a big guy when a patient gets confrontational! We have a couple of huge guys that work in radiology and they are always life savers when we gave an unruly patient!