A Night in the ER: Rethinking Patient Care and Professional Development

It is my personal mission to help put more great nurses into the world , so the more future prospective nurses we can reach through the show , the better . So I thank you so much in your help in doing that . Today I want to talk about an experience that I had two nights ago . Wasn't expecting it to happen , and that's just how life goes right .

These things happen and hopefully we learn from everything and become better people for it . What happened on Monday ? I had a little accident . If you're watching , you can see my thumb . My hand is all wrapped up . My husband actually did this this morning . He did a great job .

So on Monday I had a surprise trip to the emergency room and ironically , I'm starting my new job on Monday as an emergency department nurse and I know that this experience is going to make me a better nurse . I know it because I had some great interactions with some staff and I had some not so great interactions with staff and I learned from all of it .

I want to share that today . And I learned really what it feels like to be a patient in the emergency department . I mean , if you really think about it , it's kind of a gift . What happened to me ? I mean , I have no use of this hand for 10 days Well , limited use , but I can live with that if it's going to make me a better nurse and a better person .

So let me tell you what happened . Monday night it's around 5.30 One of my daughters , my oldest daughter , is at a martial arts class with my husband and I'm feeding my younger daughter , who's 4 , feeding her dinner and she wants an apple . So both my girls are picky eaters .

This one doesn't like stems in her apples , so usually I pull out the stem with my hand , but this one stem was a little short . So what do I do ? I grab a knife and I start to try to carve the stem out of the apple . Knife slips , boom , right into my thumb . I look down , I see a lot of blood .

I see white , which I think is bone , and I grab whatever I can find near me . I wad up a bunch of paper towels and I apply pressure and I hold it up and I'm trying to remain calm . I'm usually very good in a crisis . I can keep my cool and I have a four-year-old right there who I don't want to scare .

So I Do everything that I can to try to get my phone in Very awkward position , kind of my face down on the counter . I'm hitting the voice activation , call Rob , call Rob and I say hi , you got to come home , you got to take me to the hospital . I've cut my thumb . It's bad . And my youngest daughter at this point says what's wrong , mommy ?

And I say well , mommy's got a little boo boo . So we're gonna have a little adventure to the hospital , won't that be fun . So we're getting everybody in the car . Luckily , my husband got home within five minutes because this place is very close . We all get in the car and get to the emergency room within you know , eight to ten minutes .

And at this point my adrenaline is high . I'm not in pain and I'm really focused on keeping my cool in front of my girls and we start to realize it's gonna be a bit of a wait . We waited for about an hour and I said to my husband I said they can't be here all night , they . You should take them home .

We'll make arrangements with the neighbor , come over and then you come back . So that's what they did my , my girls left , my husband left . So at that point I was alone for about an hour and that's when things got a little scary , being alone in an emergency department .

I don't care who you are , I'm very strong , I have a high tolerance for pain , I'm an independent person . But I had not looked at the wound . I was really scared that I had done some nerve damage , that I got to the bone . I wasn't sure what had happened and I was afraid of what was going to happen .

When I took off the paper towel that was holding it all together and the adrenaline started to wear off and the pain started to set in and and eventually about an hour and a half of waiting I got called into the triage area . At this point it kind of just hits me I'm alone , I'm scared and I'm holding back tears hoping for a comforting soul in the triage .

And I was not met with that , unfortunately . The triage nurse . She was an RN and and it was , I think I was close to change over time . It was around seven , so it was probably the end of her shift , but that is no excuse . She did not tell me her name . She was very cold . She could see visibly that I was scared .

She said I'm gonna take your vitals and let me see the wound . No Comfort , no empathy , no personality . It was terrible that that room was was pretty bad and the nurse in the back my mind is kind of taking notes saying how could this happen ?

How can you treat another human like this who's sitting in front of you , who's scared , who doesn't wasn't expecting to be here . So I was quickly brought to an exam room and that's when I was met by the PA , the physician's assistant , who came in and I would give his Bedside manner about a bee .

He wasn't Bad , he wasn't cold , but he wasn't particularly warm . I would say he was fine . He saw that I was upset . He asked me what happened . He said , okay , I'll be right back to numb you up . And and he didn't . He did not come back and it had been about at least 30 minutes that I was sitting there and I was scared .

I was listening to other things around me . I could hear other patients around me , different things happening . There was a pregnant patient , there was a burned patient . So I know that there were other urgent things happening . I understood that , but there was zero communication . Communication to me to say it'll be a few more minutes , I'm so sorry , nothing .

And then I looked down and the gauze that they had given me was filled . It was bleeding , really , really bad . The wound was very deep . It did not get to the bone . Luckily , the white that I saw was actually fatty tissue , but the wound . I thought I was holding pressure .

But I think what I had started doing at that point was opening it by accident , cause I couldn't see it . So the bleeding was really bad and I had to run out to the nurse's station to say somebody , please help me , I'm bleeding . And that's when I met this PCA . She made the experience humanizing again . She was wonderful .

She came in , she said it's gonna be okay . She kind of rubbed my back a little bit and then she proceeded to redress the wound so that I could hold pressure on it in the right way . But more importantly than that , she stayed with me and she asked me what happened . She got me talking . She was making jokes and she was making me laugh . She was awesome .

She was so good . She was so good .

And at that point my husband still wasn't back yet , but I started to feel okay , I think we could get through this and the staff who came in and tried to make some sort of personal connection with me and ask if I was okay or ask if I needed anything it had been two hours and I hadn't even had water or anything , which you know it was fine .

But the fact that the PCA asked if I wanted water , it was a small comforting thing and it helped me so much in the moment . I've said that in the past about patients offering them something . And now I see , on the flip side of it , I was on the patient side , seeing what a small gesture can do

. Because here's the thing the PA , the guy who did my stitches , the guy who was , you know , the one in charge , the provider , he technically , he did his job , he was proficient , he was good and he was busy . I do understand that , but on a human level , when he was talking to me , it was very technical , it was very much .

This is what happened , this is how deep your wound is . And he did the assessments to see if I had any nerve damage , to see if I still had full mobility of my thumb , which thank goodness I do . Because that was part of the fear was how can I be a nurse and not have full use of my hands ?

So with every exercise that he had me do , he had me push against his hand . He said really try to push my hand away . He did abduction and adduction and all the different movements of my thumb . Then he would say can you feel this ? Can you feel this ? And I could feel everything , which thank goodness . But the point is he was so just technical .

He was great at his job as a provider , but his bedside manner was a ? B . He didn't have zero personality , but he could have been more warm . He could have at least provided a little bit more comfort and said it's gonna be okay .

Even when he was giving me the lidocaine , the only thing that he said was this is gonna pinch and burn , there's no other way to do it . And it was a little bit like , well , okay , I mean , I'll brace myself . I've had two babies . I could take a little lidocaine shot but in it hurt . I mean lidocaine shot and an open wound hurts , but it was okay .

But I would have appreciated a little bit more human kindness from him and I got it from the PCA . Now you could argue she had more time than he did . True , definitely , she definitely had more time to sit with me , but the time that he was there he was there with me , so he could have taken advantage of that time a little bit better than what he did .

And I don't know what his day was and frankly , I don't really care .

I was there to get treated for my injury and I just wanted the best experience possible , and what I got overall I'd give the entire experience probably B minus C plus , c plus to a B minus and that was really because of my initial point of entry in triage was just so horrible that it set the tone for the entire experience . And it's interesting .

It's just so interesting how life works . Isn't it Like the universe , or God or whatever you believe in , gives things to you , presents things to you sometimes , and I feel like I don't think necessarily everything happens for a reason .

I don't think it's all predestined , but I do think that things happen and you can absolutely learn from them and see why it was brought into your life . So the fact that this happened , it's so ironic in my interview for the job that I got , for the job that I'm starting .

On Monday , in my interview they asked me why I wanted to be an emergency room nurse , and what I said , among other things , was I want to be that initial point of entry that when people come in , they're not going to be able to get in .

They come in , they meet me and I bring them a level of comfort that I set the tone for the rest of the experience , whether they are discharged that day in a few hours or whether they are admitted to the hospital . Because when you come into the emergency department , you are at your worst . You are not expecting to be there . It disrupted your night .

I was just going to give my daughter dinner and maybe catch the end of my other daughter's martial arts class and then come home and put them to bed and go on with my life . I did not expect that to take over my night .

And so those initial people that you see in the emergency department can set the tone for everything and they can make your experience as much pain as you're in , as much trauma . The emergency department nurse has a huge responsibility , and the first nurse that I met , she blew it , she flunked , she really did , and I learned from her . So thank you .

Thank you for giving me a horrible experience . I'm stronger for it , I'm better for it and I will be a better nurse because of you , because you took an opportunity to Make me feel better . You threw it away and I will never do that . I will be so much better because of this experience and I'm grateful for it .

Now there's some things about this injury that are more of a pain than anything more of a pain in the butt kind of thing , like I have to wrap my hand in saran wrap every time I shower , I can't get it wet , I can't give my daughters a bath for at least a week and I can't do dishes which you know what ? Maybe that's that's . That's the silver lining .

I got a free pass from dishes for seven to ten days , but that's a small price to pay . That is nothing to drop in the bucket compared to what I learned , compared to Traumas that other people experience every day that are debilitating .

So if this is the worst thing that happened to me , bring it , because I'm better for it , I'm stronger for it and it was an experience that I will take with me keeping my back pocket , and it will make me better , make me stronger .

So I hope that this resonated with you in some way and Inspired you to be a better nurse , have better interactions with your patients . I think All of us listening we can always do better , we can always improve and we can always learn from the things that happen to us . So Until next time this is nurse Lauren .

It is my personal mission to help put more great nurses into the world . I thank you so much in your help in doing so . Go to nursing student coach calm , join our mailing list and Get all the latest updates of all the exciting things that are to come . Thanks so much , guys . Have an awesome day , be better , bye , bye .