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.

Source : http://www.futuresinnursing.org/planning/spotlight/emergency.shtml