When it's one of your own

Specialties Emergency

Published

Specializes in ER/Trauma.

None of us are immune to life and its inevitable end (at least as we know it - for argument's sake), but as an ER nurse, I find it a challenge when it's one of us that's just come in by squad and is now laid up in the trauma room and we all know the outcome is not going to be the one we are hoping for (or secretly bargaining with GOD for while we run down the ACLS algorithms).

Becoming a nurse was a dream come true for me - becoming an ER nurse was icing on the cake - having to struggle through scenarios like this one? - humbling, sad, gut-wrenching, a giant b^tch slap of reality to the back of the head.

Off I go - hanging up my SuperNurse cape for the night. :crying2:

Specializes in A and E, Medicine, Surgery.

Bless you I so know how that one feels. My heart goes out to you - nothing brings our own mortality closer to home than caring for one of our own.

Think hanging up the supernurse cape is a little premature though - you care enough to be personally affected by this and that in my eyes makes you a throroughbred supernurse :)

Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

I hope it's a comfort that one of your own was cared for by his/her own, thus receiving the best possible care by those who care. That, to me, is the beauty of our profession. Even if we don't provide direct care to our own, we are often directing the care of our loved ones by providing insight and counsel.

This is probably the scariest part of the job, in my aspect. I am just a student and this type of situation really really scares me, but I agree with previous posts. To know you are being taken care of by people that really care about you would be very comforting. Hope you are ok, stay strong!

I have been there and done that. I once had to code a a close coworker of mine who had worked in ICU for years. This woman had an unexpected event, and ended up in ICU, finally coding on my shift.

It was a sad situation, and made much worse b/c we knew that we were losing one of our own. In the end, I made my rest by knowing that we did all we could have done, and the rest was in the hands of almighty God.

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