WHAT I HAVE LEARNED.

My clinical experience was so awesome in aspect of learning.  At Timpanogos Regional they only have nurses, secretary's, and volunteers.  Due to it primarily only being nurses, we had to do all of our own tasks for each of our patients.  I rarely had someone to delegate to other than the volunteers, I frequently delegated room cleaning, and wheeling the patients to the car to them.  I really enjoyed having to do everything for each of my patients.  I learned fast how to prioritize and time manage due to the workload.  I really enjoyed the diversity of the patients that came into the ER, and the fact that my nursing care was not focused primarily on adults.  I learned many things from splints to the multiple cardiac medications that can be administered when busting up clots or preparing a patient for the cath lab.  I really feel that there was so many things to learn, and so little time to learn them.  I know that I couldnt learn everything there was to know about the ER in the short time I was there, but the nurse that I followed helped me learn as much as possible and I had a great experience. In the ER I found that patience and a caring attitude are very important.  Frequently we had paitents that were in for "pain management" if you will.  It was hard as a new nurse to really decipher which patients were truly in pain due to the amount of frequent flyers were coming in.  I only found out after my nurse pointed it out to me.  Overall I feel that I had an amazing experience and would love to continue learning in the Emergency Room.