Emergency Room LFD

COURSE: MASTER OF SCIENCE IN NURSING

LEARNING INSIGHT

For our first trip to the hospital I will be going to the emergency room otherwise known as the
E.R. The emergency room is a hospital or primary care department that provides initial treatment to
patients with a broad span of illnesses and injuries. In the ER there is a vast array of people caring for a
patient including physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and surgeons. An abundant amount of tools
are used in the emergency room. The role of an emergency room nurse can be demanding and may
require a nurse to use many different nursing skills at certain times to take care of a variety of patient.
The main role is the nurse must be skilled in client assessment, priority setting, critical thinking,
multitasking, and communication. The nurse must be knowledgeable and able to make some decisions
independently. The nurse also needs to be able to prioritize so the pts who are at the highest risk of
major injury or complications are treated first.

In a busy ER, time management is important too because there may be a lot of patients waiting
for care. The nurse must be mentally prepared for rapid change and be able to keep calm in hectic
situations. Nurses usually choose to work in the emergency area because they dislike routines and thrive
in challenging, stimulation work environments. In one situation I observed, a male patient came in with
chest pain. The nurse went to get him from the waiting area right away and hooked him up with the
heart monitor and got him ready for an EKG. The nurse stayed calm, and gathered the information from
the patient next. She had her own system for what she normally does depending on the level of the
patients’ injury. Another key role is teaching. The ER nurse needs to make sure the patients knows what
to do after discharge and/or when they may need to return to the ER for further testing or treatment.

The staffs at Notre dame de Chartres Hospital have the knowledge and skills needed to be at the
Emergency Room. Though some of them have the knowledge and the skills, he or she doesn’t have the
necessary attitude to serve patients and treat fellow co-workers with the appropriate behaviour. We all
know that being in the Emergency Room as a staff would greatly affect the name of the institution. ER is
the face of the hospital because this serve as the entry point of patients to the institution, and thus
every move we make should be observed.

I suggest that the head nurse should not only focus on the knowledge and skills of nurses but he
should also monitor the attitude of his staff with regards to communicating with other health
professionals. I also suggest that nurses should have more time on bedside rather than on paper works. I
noticed that nurses at Notre dame Chartres focuses more on the paper/ legal aspect than having more
time on focusing the needs of the patient. I would like to recommend having the MSN affiliates have
patient care than just observing. This will allow both the institution and the MSN affiliates have the
advantage on giving more quality on the health care service that we provide to our patients.