Emergency room nurses are an indispensable part of the infrastructure of a hospital nurse. These registered nurses are typically paid almost $50,000 as a base salary, and contribute hugely to the overall efficiency of the hospital. They specialize in quick assessment and rapid treatment, with about 90,000 nurses employed nationwide.

Emergency room nurses need knowledge in broad and specific medical areas, and may need to use all their knowledge in a given day in order to adequately care for patients. As a result, these nurses can and will treat patients suffering from anything from a broken bone to a heart attack.

Most emergency room nurses will deal with the acute stages of illness or early treatment of trauma. Nurses balance compassion with professionalism, while arranging appropriate care and identifying symptoms and problems.

One of the most important duties of an emergency room nurse is performing resuscitation. Emergency rooms are equipped with defibrillators, oxygen, intravenous lines and fluid and airway equipment. Nurses are trained to be able to use these machines and tools in order to help patients with difficulty breathing.

A triage nurse is responsible for the initial interview. He or she makes note of symptoms, in order to find the severity of the condition, or the chief complaint. Patents with more serious symptoms will be prioritized, and then treated. The nurse can transfer a patient to another department of the emergency department or to a department in the hospital.

Patients with life and limb threatening conditions bypass the triage nurse, going straight to the physicians. After the emergency room treatment, the patient will then be admitted to the hospital, stabilized, or be sent home.

Many hospitals now also feature a pediatric waiting room for children, as they have different needs than adults.

Most nurses have gone to some college, with about a third with a Bachelor’s degree, a third with an Associate’s degree and ten percent continuing on to Master’s and Doctorate programs. Additional training, like certifications in trauma and injury prevention, allows nurses to stay abreast of the latest and greatest in medicine, although few specialize, due to the breadth of conditions encountered in an emergency room. Nurses trained for working in an emergency room are usually certified to work in other areas of the hospital as well.

The downside to emergency room nursing is that the job has a high turnover rate. Stress frequently affects these nurses, so despite the large numbers of nurses working, there are still lots of demands on your time. Finding stress relief can help. The best way to succeed as an emergency room nurse is to join a strong. hard-working nursing team.