I hate waiting. Don’t we all? In my time as an ER nurse I’ve spent thousands of hours amid the languishing throngs of the waiting room. There are few places quite as miserable as an ER waiting room. On busy nights the wait times stretch to hours as people pack together with their misery. Moaning,
It has occurred to me that crisis response in the ER parallels our personal lives. When a nurse gets an acutely ill patient, their initial arrival is met with many helping hands. The doctor is right there and extra techs and nurses flock to the room to help stabilize the patient. The need is obvious
Every ER staff knows that the most dramatic and attention grabbing person in the waiting room is seldom the sickest. It's the polite man at the back of the line quietly waiting his turn that will turn out to be having a massive heart attack. So this feeling follows us around that try as you
All you can see is what’s directly in front of you – everything in the periphery, no matter how important, is merely a blur. Tunnel vision is a common plague for new nurses. You are so new, overwhelmed, inexperienced, terrified… that sometimes all you are able to focus on is the basic tasks. Everything else, no
