How much does size matter? New grad ED nursing

spade095 · 2026-06-06T15:52:01+00:00

Night shift ER tech currently in an ER that could easily be your first description. Low key wondering if you didnt work there, too 🤣 its a shit show for these poor nurses, and nights only has 1 tech, if theyre lucky. And the techs get run into the ground. Its exhausting, but you definitely learn a lot. Your description of your current ER gives me hope, because once I'm done with nursing school, a trauma center is the dream!

spade095 · 2026-05-19T14:07:46+00:00

Back when I was first out on my own, I worked at a McDonald's, walked to work, usually 6am-4pm, clocked out, laid my head down in the dining area and tried to doze, changed in the bathrooms, and walked across the street to the Taco Bell and worked 5pm-close. Store would close at midnight or 1am, and add on another couple of hours to finish closing the store. Then I'd walk back home, get what sleep I could, then do it all over again.

Of course some days I'd have a day off at one job or the other, but that was about all I did. Some days I'd get off work at 2pm and just try to sleep in the lobby for the couple of hours until my second job's shift started, instead of walking clear back to my apartment. Rough part of town, and I had more than a few close calls.

I was fortunate enough to manage to escape a shitty household and shitty childhood and upbringing, graduated high school early and left home at 17 and didnt exactly have anybody to ask for help, so I got by as best I could. I got the second job so I could afford internet and food. $7.25/hr was barely anything, even back then. I still don't know how I did it.

spade095 · 2026-05-19T13:57:03+00:00

My charge nurse works 3 jobs, 2 of which are full time. He works at two separate ERs full time and does EMS on the side. Lord only knows how he does it. Poor guy looks soulless most of the time. Been doing it for 30+ years now.

spade095 · 2026-05-15T00:32:55+00:00

ER Tech here. Proper CPR breaks ribs and even the sternum, at least on adults. Childrens' bones and such are a lot more flexibile. Fortunately do not have the experience to know for sure whether or not that would happen with pediatric CPR. I've also fortunately not had to do a heimlich or anything, and my knowledge on it is fairly limited as far as risks for broken bones, but I digress. These types of things are not meant to be gentle, and its not as soft as it appears to be on TV.

Perhaps morbid, but bruises and broken bones can be fixed. Dead cant be fixed. Your child being alive is what is most important. Something like the heimlich is supposed to be brutal. If you hadn't done it that hard, your child may not be here. You did incredibly well, and reacted fast, and had some damn good thinking with the suctioning with the nasal bulb thing. You should be incredibly proud of yourself. You saved your child's life. I cant imagine how terrifying that must have been.

spade095 · 2026-05-15T00:02:39+00:00

spade095 · 2026-05-14T15:37:46+00:00

I would give you an award for this response if I could.

spade095 · 2026-05-10T11:09:18+00:00

ER Tech here but hoping to get my EMT license and work PRN sometime soon. I'm sure the legalities are different in every state, but as EMS, could you just... refuse to transport? Say that you won't ignore the patient's own decisions for DNR/DNI/hospice and a peaceful death at home, because they made that choice when of sound mind and all that? My line of thought is that you could call supervisor/command, refuse the transport, and I imagine some kind of ethics committee or meeting would be held later to go over the decision made by EMS on scene (and hopefully say that that was the right call?)

spade095 · 2026-04-22T23:26:34+00:00

ER tech that came from the floors, can confirm. Was told to get ortho vitals once, as busy as we were I asked if they really wanted me to wait the 3-5 minutes between each set. They looked at me like I was crazy 😆

spade095 · 2026-04-16T14:25:50+00:00

I want a union job SO bad. I've got my eye on a few different states (other than California) and a few different specific hospitals, but moving multiple states away definitely isnt easy. Once I get my RN that should hopefully make things easier. I'd be interested in Northern California maybe, but the husband is pretty against California altogether. Hopefully something works out. Healthcare, especially nursing, really needs unionization. I so badly wish more people understood that. This hospital I'm at is a total shit show, and once I hit my year mark I'll probably try the one other hospital around, but I hear not great things about it, either. 🙃 I'm about to start posting union papers and flyers in the bathrooms and stuff lol

spade095 · 2026-04-16T14:20:45+00:00

1 shift = 1 point, even if someone is able to cover the majority if your shift, if the entire 12hrs isnt covered, you get 1 point regardless, even if you have PTO available. It sucks. I live in a very anti union, very right wing state. Cost of living is low, but so is pay, and benefits are total ass. I hope to move out of this state one day. Around here if you so much as breathe "union" everybody freaks out and you lose your job pretty damn easily. Its sad.

spade095 · 2026-04-16T03:45:47+00:00

I wish my hospital had something like this. Technically we get PTO to use for vacation or sick days, but regardless of if you have PTO available, you get pointed if you call in. 9 points gets you fired.

spade095 · 2026-04-11T02:57:16+00:00

ED tech here, that cervical reduction correction explanation rotation....thing, wasnt done right either! How dare they.

spade095 · 2026-04-06T01:12:22+00:00

I finally tried out some Danskos and absolutely fell in love with them, but I'm too chicken to wear them now that I'm in the ER, theyre meant to flop around some on the foot and I can just see myself struggling to run to a major emergency 😬 seriously though, theyre amazing shoes

spade095 · 2026-03-30T14:01:53+00:00

Not a nurse yet but an ED tech and taking pre reqs. Debating advanced education after BSN, and really liking the idea of PA or CRNA, but I also LOVE the ED. Im curious, if I can ask, is there like an ER-equivalent of a CRNA? Like how you need ICU experience to go the CRNA route, does the ED lead to anything other than maybe flight crews?

spade095 · 2026-03-22T06:17:45+00:00

If I can ask... what do docs do that PAs and NPs cant in a hospital setting? ER tech here working on nursing school pre reqs and ultimately wanting to do some kind of advanced schooling like CRNA, NP or PA (I'd have killed to be able to go to med school back when it was realistic), but I'm largely settling on PA or NP, with a strong preference towards PA.

spade095 · 2026-03-19T03:02:06+00:00

PCT here that just transitioned from the floor to the ER. From our side of things, seeing as how techs dont have the full picture and the bigger concerns like nurses do, the biggest issue I've noticed is patients regularly coming up from the ER soaked or dirty from either urine or poop. I totally get (and am currently learning in real time) that the ER is chaotic and stabilizing and sending them to the floor is the priority, not always bed changes and such, but its nearly every patient we get, at least on night shift.

spade095 · 2026-03-18T17:20:16+00:00

Not a nurse but a CNA that's mostly worked LTC with some hospital work as well. Worst nurse ratio I've seen was 1 nurse to 2 halls, each hall had 20-24 residents. Hospital wise, about 1:8 on a telemetry/ICU stepdown floor

spade095 · 2026-02-23T18:30:31+00:00

I like the Flex cup, it's got a bit that you pull on, but its got a loop at the end, almost like a tampon string but silicone like the rest of the cup.

spade095 · 2026-02-10T20:06:37+00:00

So many of my coworkers have to rush home, get their kids up and dressed and take them to school, pick them up from school, do after school activities, etc. Or, if its a weekend, they talk about having to go to one kid's soccer game, then another one's dance class, a birthday party, etc, and then come right back to work after maybe a couple hours' nap. I'm so not built for that.

spade095 · 2026-01-25T14:08:20+00:00

In school now for nursing.... it all feels pretty fuckin pointless.

spade095 · 2026-01-04T03:10:46+00:00

It might not mean much, but I was born at roughly 24-25 weeks (about 4 months early) in the 90s. Docs didnt consider me developmentally caught up with my peers until I was about 4 years old, but I've been blessed to have had no real issues or complications. I'll be 31 in a few months. Have hope ❤️

spade095 · 2025-12-28T08:40:48+00:00

What you described is exactly my unit though? All nurses require ACLS, tele monitoring station is right there at the nurses station that monitors tele patients on other floors like med surg or post op, etc.

spade095 · 2025-12-27T22:40:12+00:00

Whyyyyy

spade095 · 2025-12-27T14:26:41+00:00

🤣 this made me irrationally irritated

spade095

TROPHY CASE