What is the most common chief complaint or diagnosis in your ED?

Specialties Emergency

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Specializes in ER, education, mgmt.

chest pain

sob

back pain

vomiting with or without abd pain

syncope/near syncope

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Specializes in ER, Step-Down.

-chest pain/palpitations

-SOB

-abdominal pain

-kidney stones/UTI symptoms

-migraine headache

-syncope/near syncope

-GI bleed

I think that sums up the majority of our frequent complaints. We'll have several of each every day, I swear. Some days there will be a whole hall filled with abd pain/GI bleeders!

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chest pain, abd pain, migraines, uti's mostly.

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Specializes in CAPA RN, ED RN.

Congrats on your job and all the best as you prepare for it. We have about 20 complaints that are frequent enough for us to put into carepaths. Chest pain, shortness of breath, abdominal pain, GI bleeding, altered mental status, pediatric fever, flank pain, extremity injury, etc. That will get you started for sure. If you want more I can check the topics when I am at work.

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Specializes in NICU.

I have never worked in the ER before, but my friends have told me that a lot of women/girls will come in just for urine pregnancy tests. Isn't it a lot cheaper to just buy one? They even sell them at dollar stores.

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Specializes in A and E, Medicine, Surgery.

First and most importantly congratulations and welcome to the crazy fantastic world of Emergency Nursing.

Conditions we see, well in the UK we call the ED Accident and Emergency ( A and E) which the jokers say stands for anything and everything and that just about covers it but let me try and do a day's typical turn in's.

04:00hrs invariably sees an elderly patient arrive with crashing left ventricular failure, they usually arrive desperately unwell but a quick dose of furosemide works wonders.

05:00hrs an arrest usually cardiac arrest but occasionally respiratory arrest. Not sure why but that time of the morning regularly sees a peri, full or post arrest. Depending on the size of the department most manage arrests within the department not calling a team.

06:00 to 08:00hrs sees a flurry of minor injuries either trying to beat the rush or having spent all night awake because the pain hasn't gone away. Minors is everything fractures, burns, wounds, eye complaints, epistaxis, foreign bodies and many many more.

09:00hrs seems to be bins out time (garbage cans for my American friends) so subsequently I expect to see the odd fractured NOF or displaced colles that will need pulling at this time.

the day sees a steady trickle of:

Chest Pains - cardiac, pleuritic, muscular or infective. All tend to get assessed in a similair way. Obs, bloods, Hx, chest xray, analgesia, ECG. Treatment varies on findings but here more and more pt's are being brought in for troponin levels.

Infective exacarbation of COPD

Collapse ? cause

Shortness of Breath. Again multiple causes including asthma, infection, anaemia, pneumothorax to name a few.

Abdominal Pain including gastritis, appendicitis, obstruction, pancreatitis, ovarian cysts and many more.

Altered level of consciousness ... CVA, bleed, self poisoning and good old alcohol.

Fitters - febrile, real or pseudo.

Renal Colics, Urine retnetion and septic elderly patients secondary to UTI's

Palpitations which can be anything from anxiety to SVT with a whole range in between.

The evening sees a rise in the number of:-

Falls - elderly patients that have fallen and been unable to get up

Self poisonings of every conceivable drug known.

Head injuries primarily from assaults.

22:00 for some reason seems to be our peak time for traumas :- stabbings, RTC's, housefires etc. Thankfully in the UK GSW's are relatively rare.

These are the things you will see daily but the other less regular list is endless;

Triple A's

GI bleeds

Drownings

Back pain

Allergic reactions

Don't know if you can get it outside the UK but my little reading bible is "The Oxford handbook of Accident and Emergency medicine. It's invaluable.

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Specializes in Trauma/ED.
I have never worked in the ER before, but my friends have told me that a lot of women/girls will come in just for urine pregnancy tests. Isn't it a lot cheaper to just buy one? They even sell them at dollar stores.

Get that crazy logical thinking out of the ED it doesn't live here, just like bringing in your kid with a fever unmedicated because, "I wanted you guys to believe he has a fever"...absolute crazy talk :-)

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

We see a TON of psych patients ... probably because there is a psych unit right upstairs from us, and people come to our ED for medical clearance before going upstairs. Or they come from 3 counties away, only to find out our psych unit upstairs has no beds ... that gets frustrating! They should go to their closest ED for med clearance, period.

Beyond the pregnancy tests, we get "sono seekers" -- usually the ones without prenatal care, but they want to know the sex of their child. We don't tell them, nor do we give them a sono picture for their wallet. :D

ANYWAY. Good luck! Your excitement make me smile!! :) And you'll probably notice when you get one kind of complaint (i.e., SOB, chest pain, flank pain, etc.), you'll usually get three or four of them at a time. It's kinda weird like that!

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Specializes in Emergency Department/Trauma.
I have never worked in the ER before, but my friends have told me that a lot of women/girls will come in just for urine pregnancy tests. Isn't it a lot cheaper to just buy one? They even sell them at dollar stores.

The dollar stores require money for the product though, much easier to visit the local ED when you have no funds or even a plan to pay.

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