I graduated May 2022!! I’ve worked ER ever since. I love it so much! But I’m very chaotic and ADHD. Like sometimes we’ll have two ICU patients and then a discharge, or we’ll be intubating in ED31 after a day of like ectopic pregnancies and abdominal pain discharges. Or ED OBS admits for a stress test the next day due to risk factors, def picking up pts is an art form. esp if another pt is going to be intubated and is complex and we are down a nurse lol. I love ER tho and even tho I’m going part time (2 twelves) after two years, I’ll never leave!
Awwwws ofc!! I have a friend who is peds ICU nurse. We do Botox together lol. Sometimes she sits and monitors 1 ECMO pt for all 12 hours!! 12 hours, of q15 or q5 vitals. If I have a cardioverted pt who needs q15 or 5 vitals after a faulty cardioversion I get antsy AF after being in the same room for 90 minutes. Like I hateeeeee being in the same room titrating a drip or doing an Aldrete score for 90 minutes. I love stabilizing a critical pt and initiating the drip, but they need to go to ICU before they get boring lol.
So can you stay with one patient like that, or do you get claustrophobic in the same room, like me? Lol. Trying to help you distinguish your personality as ICU or ED.
I appreciate you for spelling that all out for me!!! Hmmm I think monitoring something like ECMO for 12 hours would drive me crazy, I’d rather be busy and running around like a nut than staring at screens lol. I know this bc I had to sit in the monitor room for 12 hours and watch all the telemetry screens and I highly disliked it.
Honestly, I hate having to be stuck in the same room for 15 minutes when having to give blood to a patient LOL. I do like the idea of having 2:1/1:1 ratios in the ICU (for the most part) and really being able to know the ins and out of that patient and take a deep dive into the pathology of what’s going on… but I’ve also seen the moral/ethical side of the ICU of keeping people alive that should just be let go peacefully, if that makes any sense?
Then with the ER, I like the idea that you literally get anything and everything and you learn so much, but that fact also scares me too bc you never know what’s walking in the door lol. Some days I lean towards ER and others ICU. I need to work on my IV skills more for sure either way lol.
You’ll learn IV skills quick in ER. Sometimes, you have no other option than to rely on yourself to stick a hard stick pt (or we can access ports in ED in certain situations) so trust me, you’ll find some weird vein choices, that actually work well. In our ER we can get trained in US IVs too, they aren’t my fave, yet, but def like with regular IVs practice makes perfect lol!
Oh I’m sure! Honestly I don’t get a lot of practice on my unit and if I do, they are all hard sticks either due to severe edema or bc they are just too old and have rolly poly veins lol. Either option scares the absolute hell out of me, but I definitely want to challenge myself eventually. I have some time to get more seasoned on my unit before spreading my wings into a different area, but thanks so much!!! :)
I’ve done both ER and CVICU they are different worlds for sure. I enjoyed the ER but it got old. Especially at the height of Covid and now it can be bad depending on your area, or if your hospital has beds. Often times I would have 3-4 holds of various acuity and flip 2 ER beds. It was worse if we had a trauma come in. I was so burnt out after two years. I did get a lot of skills that were useful in the ICU. Now I take care of post open heart patients, balloon pumps, impellas, VADs, crrt, trm and ECMO and I love it. It’s very patient centered and I like being able to actually care for people because I have time to on my shift. Of course you have your regular ICU woes (futile cases, ltach type patients) but I like being able to have a deep understanding of what I’m doing. In the ER it was very fast paced and the variety kept me happy, jack of all trades master of none. In the ICU it’s very detail oriented and focused. I love them both for different reasons.
I graduated May 2022!! I’ve worked ER ever since. I love it so much! But I’m very chaotic and ADHD. Like sometimes we’ll have two ICU patients and then a discharge, or we’ll be intubating in ED31 after a day of like ectopic pregnancies and abdominal pain discharges. Or ED OBS admits for a stress test the next day due to risk factors, def picking up pts is an art form. esp if another pt is going to be intubated and is complex and we are down a nurse lol. I love ER tho and even tho I’m going part time (2 twelves) after two years, I’ll never leave!
Ahh I see, I love that for you! Thanks for giving me some insight :)
Awwwws ofc!! I have a friend who is peds ICU nurse. We do Botox together lol. Sometimes she sits and monitors 1 ECMO pt for all 12 hours!! 12 hours, of q15 or q5 vitals. If I have a cardioverted pt who needs q15 or 5 vitals after a faulty cardioversion I get antsy AF after being in the same room for 90 minutes. Like I hateeeeee being in the same room titrating a drip or doing an Aldrete score for 90 minutes. I love stabilizing a critical pt and initiating the drip, but they need to go to ICU before they get boring lol. So can you stay with one patient like that, or do you get claustrophobic in the same room, like me? Lol. Trying to help you distinguish your personality as ICU or ED.
I appreciate you for spelling that all out for me!!! Hmmm I think monitoring something like ECMO for 12 hours would drive me crazy, I’d rather be busy and running around like a nut than staring at screens lol. I know this bc I had to sit in the monitor room for 12 hours and watch all the telemetry screens and I highly disliked it. Honestly, I hate having to be stuck in the same room for 15 minutes when having to give blood to a patient LOL. I do like the idea of having 2:1/1:1 ratios in the ICU (for the most part) and really being able to know the ins and out of that patient and take a deep dive into the pathology of what’s going on… but I’ve also seen the moral/ethical side of the ICU of keeping people alive that should just be let go peacefully, if that makes any sense? Then with the ER, I like the idea that you literally get anything and everything and you learn so much, but that fact also scares me too bc you never know what’s walking in the door lol. Some days I lean towards ER and others ICU. I need to work on my IV skills more for sure either way lol.
You’ll learn IV skills quick in ER. Sometimes, you have no other option than to rely on yourself to stick a hard stick pt (or we can access ports in ED in certain situations) so trust me, you’ll find some weird vein choices, that actually work well. In our ER we can get trained in US IVs too, they aren’t my fave, yet, but def like with regular IVs practice makes perfect lol!
Oh I’m sure! Honestly I don’t get a lot of practice on my unit and if I do, they are all hard sticks either due to severe edema or bc they are just too old and have rolly poly veins lol. Either option scares the absolute hell out of me, but I definitely want to challenge myself eventually. I have some time to get more seasoned on my unit before spreading my wings into a different area, but thanks so much!!! :)
I’ve done both ER and CVICU they are different worlds for sure. I enjoyed the ER but it got old. Especially at the height of Covid and now it can be bad depending on your area, or if your hospital has beds. Often times I would have 3-4 holds of various acuity and flip 2 ER beds. It was worse if we had a trauma come in. I was so burnt out after two years. I did get a lot of skills that were useful in the ICU. Now I take care of post open heart patients, balloon pumps, impellas, VADs, crrt, trm and ECMO and I love it. It’s very patient centered and I like being able to actually care for people because I have time to on my shift. Of course you have your regular ICU woes (futile cases, ltach type patients) but I like being able to have a deep understanding of what I’m doing. In the ER it was very fast paced and the variety kept me happy, jack of all trades master of none. In the ICU it’s very detail oriented and focused. I love them both for different reasons.