Emergency Department

My new grad program allowed us to sped one week training down in the Emergency Department. I had high hopes for lots of action. However, sadly we did not get to be where the other Emergency Department RN's are but in a separate area that is used for holding. When a patient is going to stay in the hospital but there is no bed available they are sent over to the telemetry holding area and this is where I was. I was still on night shift so it was very quiet. Apparently this can happen as well as the opposite-some nights are crazy wild.

While I didn't get to do too many exciting activities I did get to look at what the other emergency department RN's do on a typical night. There's a different feel to ER nurses. They have this constant buzz about them. I really hope one day I can join a ER team-my highest hopes include joining a trauma one unit. Until them I will continue learning all I can from the nurses that are willing to teach. I also learned that ER nurses have the best sense of humor.

Two other new grads and trying desperately to keep each other awake during night shift in the ED.

One night in the ED there was enough downtime for the nurses to do their annual skill evaluation. It was fun to watch them practice all these skills and it reminded me a lot of nursing school. It was interesting to see that skills are always evaluated no matter how long a nurse is in practice.