0700 – 1900 in the ER

Last week I had my first ER clinical and first 12hr shift and I just LOVED IT. I felt so on fire all day whipping out skills left and right and feeling on top of my game. I don’t know what got into me- I felt so nervous before starting the day, thinking I was going to crack under pressure, but I proved myself wrong! I couldn’t believe how much confidence I had.

It was me and another nursing student, sweet sweet Elizabeth, and for some of the day we just worked on things as a team which was REALLY nice. We did a foley catheter on a male, I have only had a chance to do females so this was a great experience for me. Then I did about 3 IV’s which gave me some good practice.  I also finally had a chance to do an NG tube on the sweetest elderly man who kept holding my hand throughout the day when I would stand by his bed. Him and his wife were the kind of people that make you love your job and the ones you just think about when you say your prayers at  night.

There were several other things that went on that day. One came in by ambulance and was having a STEMI (heart attack). There were about 15 people in his room and I watched from the corner. We had a 9yr old girl r/o  meningitis so I got to see her get a lumbar puncture. The CSF was so clear it looked like water which I would imagine is a good sign. She was so strong, I could tell she was in so much pain. It made me think I might not be able to hand pediatrics.

I got to sit with the triage nurse for a bit to assess patients coming in through the waiting room. One guy had a tire blow out in his face and was experiencing hearing and vision loss so we got to do a visual acuity test with the Snellen chart. There weren’t very many trauma patients throughout the day, just got to see a few bloody hands…no severed fingers or anything like that unfortunately. :)

Overall it was a great experience and I would love to work in the ER upon graduating. It is now down to L&D and ER. Guess I will just see where I can get a job!