How difficult is it to transition from working as a psych nurse in a psychiatric hospital to an ER nurse? I’ve been a psych nurse since I graduated in 2019, and I’m ready for a change. TIA!
You would need to be ready to learn a lot of skills. Where psych nursing is a lot of listening and assessing for medication side effects etc.
In ER nursing, you would have to learn how to draw blood, start IVs, hook people up to a heart monitor or oxygen. I loved working in the ER but I did that first almost right our of nursing school. You have to learn assessment skills quickly so that you can determine if a person is in a critical emergency situation or not.
You can definitely move into the ER but realize that if you've never done it before you'll be going in as "entry level" and you would want to make sure that the ER has the capacity to train, teach and mentor you as a new ER nurse. Once you've worked in the ER you can do almost anything. GO FOR IT.
Having psych experience is great!
We spend quite a bit of time figuring out placement for psych patients as the ER isn’t a psych ward, but if you’re lucky and it’s a rainy day, then rejoice! The ED will become a psych ward before you know it.
But in all seriousness, most psych patients I’ve encountered in the ED present with suicidal ideation but it’s usually secondary to drug use and they just want to get away from the elements, namely the rain and cold weather. When they’re interviewed by the clinician, they have no concrete plans, they’re just really vague and it’s funny how their ideation subsides as soon as they have a bed and breakfast. Malingering is the word that comes to mind.
I believe this will be a great transition for you as you will most likely be a great communicator which is a great skill to have in ED nursing.
Just a note to this community of bright, creative and excellent colleagues I value. I just wrote an answer to the above question and realized the typos after submitting, I apologize, and should have been more careful. My arthritis is particularly ugly this evening and my typing is worse than usual. Someone on here contacted me privately (I know her) and said "You have two graduate degrees and you still can't type! NO, I can't and my hands make it worse. I paid someone who could read my cursive to type up my thesis for me! But I know a LOT about nursing, so thanks for reading my rant. This is such a valuable group, keep up the wonderful input everyone.
It can be problematic. Each hospital will decide based on need, collective experience, and you may be required to take general medical refresher course
I worked in psychiatric nursing and then transitioned to ICU and ER after a few years. It's a challenge becuause you will use eveything you have learned in psych, but will also need a new and very different set of skills. ER is fast-paced and you have to know physical assessment very well. You also must learn to spot physical changes, sometimes subtle, in order to interrupt processes which may have devastating consequences to the patient if not caught early. You CAN do it, but it will take willingness to master/re-learn nursing that focuses far more onth e physioloogic (as opposed to the psychologic) functions of the human sustem. In addition, you will be required to deal with all age groups from cradle to grave - literally. I've helped to deliver infants in the parking lot in the back of cabs and on the floor of the admissions office, and have consoled family members at stretcher-side when a loved one is pronounced dead. In psych, we usually deal with EITHER adults or children/adolescents. In the ER, you will deal with EVERYONE! I loved it, you will continue to learn constantly, be challened to become shaper, develop better judgement, and be more observant; you'll learn to think faster and be very creative when supplies run low, and become even more independent in practice. AND and there's never a dull moment! You may wish to purchase an ER bok and read through it or review your old A&P notes and Human Assessment notes from school. Medications are quite different also, although you will still give some psych mends, you'll deal more with meds for shock, hypertensive crisis, MI, etc. Do a good med review to remember the details on those you don't routinely give in psych. Good luck!
An ER is not too different from a psychiatric Hospital. The pts all need emotional support and go theough different stages of their physical illness and your coworkers occassional need to break down and let their emotions out because of running around an ER like a chicken without a head and sooo very much information and demand put on the staff, maybe multiple deaths related to violence depending upon whether you will be working in an inner city ER. It is just like a war zone and you are always prioritizing which 4 shots are worse than 9 shots. You will need to talk about these things to a mental health provider but if you work for an awesome hospital, that hospital provides a weekly mental health provider and makes you stop and talk about the things you have witnessed, the rape of a child , all of these occurrences are reasons that you will at least have some ability to handle the ER due to your Psy background. You will do well !
So, you are in the right PLACE
Find a hospital that has a relationship with there own psych hospital or floor, that way you have experience when apply.
Secondly, you will most likely go through a Fellowship. You will be paired up with another nurse who is some kind of preceptor. These person will be your ya or na for the ER.
Good luck.
you can be their nurse assistant and then be a nurse technician that does charting and pass out medication..sometimes there is i heard there is nurses that do janitorial nurses that clean up their surroundings and wear ppe
It will be a difficult but not impossible change, I had a coworker decide to leave psych for the ER. One big advantage you'll have is knowing how to deal with psych pt's coming into the ER. Where I worked most of the RN's in the ER had issues dealing with psych patients and psych nurses.However, that's another story.I left step down ICU and went into psych( and never looked back) and I know how to do everything from Admission to Discharge including Utilization Review for Psych. 35 of my 40 yrs in nursing has been in Psych. I did the opposite of my classmates and went to step down ICU to make use of the skills I learned in school......then to psych to learn those skills.
Any hospital will give you an extensive orientation.
You will need to be good at starting IVs, Sepsis protocols, Stroke protocols, and STEMI protocols to name a few. Knowing how to read EKGs helps. You care for patients from the cradle to the grave and you need to be good at clustering your care quickly and compassionately. It is fast-paced and you need to adapt to a crisis quickly. The ED's adage is to "turn 'em and burn 'em" or "treat 'em and street 'em" It's about throughput as quickly as you can. You may also want to become Trauma Certified if your ED has Trauma Bays, just to name a few. Good luck!
I worked in an critical care trauma unit for 20 years then went to psyche... totally different, whole new set of skills and stresses, you will probably have to intern first but it might be fun if you like the adrenaline rush and are fast on your feet.
Psych to ED will likely be a drastic change. I've never worked in a psych unit, but I have worked in an ED that took in psych patients for observation. An ED is a busy place. As soon as you discharge a patient home or transfer one to the unit, another is right there. 4:1 ratio where I worked. Assigned rooms were clustered close together. I walked 4-5 miles a shift. Many nights I barely got time to use the restroom. Many mornings, at the end of my shift, I walked out of the building eating my lunch. I didn't leave the ED due to the workload. I left due to POOR management and very little precepting. I didn't know what I needed to know, had to learn it on my own. I also graduated in 2019 and the job in the ED was my first. I've not tried working in an ED at any other facility. Somewhere else would have to have been better than my experience. Good luck to you if you decide to make a change. Jumping in is the only way you'll know if it's something you'll like.
