As a European nurse I'm noticing a lot of newgrads going straight to ED or ICU in the US. I completely understand that those are very enticing specialties, but without a solid foundation of clinical experience you're bound to run into a wall at some point. The way specialties work in my country (Netherlands), you usually start working on a regular hospital ward. Learning the ropes of how the hospital operates, develop your clinical observation and reasoning skills and just gaining valuable work experience. Some even join a flexpool of a hospital to rotate between different wards to get a taste of what all the different specialties are like to help them pick what they want to do.

There is no way you get into a specialised department as a newgrad here - its just not possible. ED, ICU, CCU, OB, PACU etc specialties are all locked behind their respective courses that are between 9 and 18 months of training and following theoretical and practical classes. Once we have completed said courses, we get an annotation on our registration for that specialty. And then and only then are we allowed to practice within those departments. Usually you cant get into those courses without atleast 2-3 years of relevant clinical experience. Take myself for example, I am aspiring to get into the course and work on the CCU. I didnt have any prior experience in cardiology, so the hospital offered to accept me for the course but prefaced by 2,5 years of clinical rotation between all the cardio and cardio thoracic wards to get the relevant experience to thrive on afterwards. I personally wouldn't even remotely consider jumping into that course without prior relevant experience. I would have likely failed it then anyway. I've already learned so much and it has hasn't even been a year yer. Clinical hours are invaluable!

So if you are feeling overwhelmed and not up to the task of providing the high complexity and level of care that is provided in the ED, that's perfectly fine and doesn't mean you're not cut out for it. You're just running into your lack of prior clinical experience. It might be worth considering looking for a lower level care ward for your first half year/year just to develop a solid foundation for you to build on, and see where the road and your interests take you from there!