Emergency Nursing
The emergency department (ED) is an area of the hospital
that is truly different each and every day and can quickly
shift from the quietest to the most hectic department
in the hospital in literally a matter of minutes. The
types of patients that come to the emergency department
for care as well as the numbers of patients that show
up in hospital emergency departments often depend on
things like the weather, highway accidents, industrial
accidents, fires, and hundreds of other unfortunate
incidents. ED nurses can expect to care for patients
of all ages; heart attack, stroke, and asthma victims;
and the occasional pregnant woman whose delivery is
progressing faster than she anticipated. ED nurses also
provide care to patients for illnesses and other conditions
that could be treated in a family physician’s office.
If you have the chance to see an ED in action, it might
seem chaotic, but it is actually a team of dedicated
and well-educated professionals working together to
stabilize patients and make sure they receive the appropriate
level of care.
If emergency care nursing sounds exciting to you, take
a minute and ask yourself if you have what it takes.
Do you have -
- good listening, interpersonal and customer service
skills?
- the ability to think and act decisively on your
feet?
- the ability to perform many tasks simultaneously?
- stamina?
- the ability to shift gears, refocus and reprioritize
quickly?
- good coping skills?
- the ability to remain calm in tense, highly stressful
situations?
- a sense of humor (laughter is a great way to deal
with difficult situations)?
Emergency room nurses aren’t limited to working in
hospitals. Nurses with experience in emergency nursing
might be found in EMS and pre-hospital transport, flight
nursing in medical transport helicopters, the military,
poison control centers, crisis intervention centers,
administrative and managerial positions, educators in
schools of nursing or perhaps even a school nurse with
some additional preparation.
Emergency care nursing requires a solid foundation
in basic nursing skills that most newly graduated nurses
don’t yet possess. However, don’t be discouraged. Working
for a year or two in another area of nursing such as
critical care or medical-surgical units can provide
you with the experience and skills to make your move
to the ED. If the ED is where you want to work, take
the time to read everything you can about ED nursing
and consider taking advanced life support classes to
improve your skills and help prepare yourself to face
the situations that emergency care nurses deal with
on a routine basis.