What is trauma nursing really like?

Specialties Emergency

Published

Hey! I'm getting near the end of high school, and I know I want to be a nurse. I have not one shred of doubt about my passion for nursing. I have a couple of possible areas of interest, and trauma nursing is one of them. I absolutely love fast-paced environments. Blood and complete gory nastiness do not bother me whatsoever. I'm quite interested in level 1 traumas, as I live very close to one of the best level 1 trauma hospitals in the United States.

Are there any nurses who would like to tell me about their experiences in this area? I would love to learn about the ins and outs of the specialty. All you can find online is a general description, and I want a true account of what a day as a trauma nurse is like! Any and all advice/ information you can give me is so appreciated!

Thank you so much!!

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Thanks for being so descriptive :x3:

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.

What do you envision a trauma nurse is? The reason I ask is there are multiple aspects of trauma nursing and they can be very different. So What do you see yourself doing as a trauma nurse?

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Honestly I'm not dead set on a certain aspect of it! I just would love to be in that environment working with severely injured patients. I'm really open to any area of it. I would love to learn about experiences from all areas of trauma nursing!

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Some examples of what we see in my Level 1 Trauma Center include: plane crash, ATV rollover, motorcycle collisions, MVA (motor vehicle accident), auto-ped, assault, stabbings, gunshot wounds, drownings, falls, kicked by horse, limb degloving, tractor accidents, impalement, etc.

We usually get a handful of trauma patients each day. To become a trauma nurse, you typically work as an emergency room RN. You will see the most trauma in a Level 1 Center as you mentioned. They are the big guns, and receiving facilities for major accidents.

Working in the ER is not trauma, trauma, trauma all day long. My facility requires the ER RN's to rotate between regular ER patients as well.

ER trauma nurses mostly focus on stabilizing critical patients. They provide resuscitation efforts, (CPR, fluids), immobilization, and then ship the patient off to the ICU depending on acuity. Great job to have. One of the most fun things about it is you never know what's coming next. Often, EMS will call the ER charge nurse ahead of time and warn of incoming patients. Other times, you get a drop off, ditch and run type scenario where staff is resuscitating in the ER parking lot.

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.

The thing is I'm not sure a "trauma"nurse is what you think it is and here's why. If you work in the ED you won't just be assigned to trauma patients. You'll be taking care of everything from hang nails to full codes with some traumas thrown in the mix. It's not like it is on TV with a trauma every 5 minutes. Not only that but not all traumas are "balls to the walls". Many are pretty mundane and classified as "traumas" based on mechanism of injury (essentially that just means what happened to them could cause severe injury). If you work in a trauma ICU you will definitely take care of severely injured people and many not so severely. While there will be those adrenaline rushing moments alot of it is still routine ICU care. And you might be taking care of overflow patients from the medical ICU if they are full and your unit has beds available. You could work as a rehab nurse and help trauma patients regain as much independence as possible. You could work as a flight nurse but trust me most transports are so routine as to be boring plus the vast majority are medical-related rather than trauma-related. All of these jobs are interesting and could be a fulfilling career for you but none of them will be soley trauma nursing as I think you are defining it, likely based on what you have seen on TV.

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Not at all am I basing this off of television. I completely know and understand that it is not a constant flow of crazy trauma cases. Real hospitals aren't like Grey's Anatomy makes them out to be. Like I said, I've done my research. I am simply interested in trauma AND ER because of the fact that you see different things instead of seeing all of the same exact types of cases all day every day. Thanks y'all!

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.

Some facilities trauma team may help in the ED but in my area the one hospital the trauma nurses are trained to take the patient from EMS delivery to the OR if trauma (regular OR staff handle ortho, neuro, and other specialized surgery )to the TICU. The trauma nurses primarily staff the trauma ICU, rotate for trauma response, and also help with out patient follow up. If census is low they will rotate to assist in the SICU, MICU, ED or if on the pedi trauma team also pedi ED or PICU. Occasionally they will support in PACU as that is another critical care environment

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Thanks so much! That's a lot of good information:)

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.
Not at all am I basing this off of television. I completely know and understand that it is not a constant flow of crazy trauma cases. Real hospitals aren't like Grey's Anatomy makes them out to be. Like I said, I've done my research. I am simply interested in trauma AND ER because of the fact that you see different things instead of seeing all of the same exact types of cases all day every day. Thanks y'all!

Okay good! Now I know where you're coming from and we're on the same page. If you work in the ED and are trained to take the trauma cases you will be sent to a course called TNCC which will teach you the basics of immediate trauma care. As I said before you will not always be assigned to the trauma cases and will see things from completely non-urgent, non-ED appropriate to crazy codes and the like. That's the fun of the ED. You never know what you're gonna get. Makes for very interesting days, and as JBN said there are some hospitals that have dedicated teams however, I think that is more the exception than the rule. At least in my experience. What I've seen is most often is sort of a conglameration. There are staff outside of the ED assigned to traumas but the nursing care is usually provided by ED nurses.

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Specializes in Neuro/ ENT.

To be honest, you sound like a good candidate for Paramedicine. I loved it. 85% of calls are ho-hum, but there are those last 15% that are real traumas/ medicals. When I first started, I was all about the trauma. After a while, though, all the traumas tend to be similar in care and transport, there isn't a lot of think work. Medical calls became my favorite from there, because you have to really pay attention and think. I am extremely excited to start nursing school this fall, but I will always remember my days as a paramedic very fondly ;)

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