Websites for Emergency Room Nurses
- American Nurse Today
- White Coats Call Room
- ER Nurses Blog
- EDNurseasauras
- Madness: Tales of an Emergency Room Nurse
If you're considering a career in emergency room nursing, use these five great websites to make an informed choice about whether this job will be a good fit for you. Emergency room nurses have a special set of skills: they need to stay calm and think quickly when every second can literally mean life or death for a patient. These websites will take you behind the scenes to hear the first hand stories about working in ER, the interactions between nurses and doctors, and the professional support ER nurses can find online.
1. American Nurse Today
American Nurse Today is a hub that lets you easily search current clinical research from a peer reviewed journal along with articles that translate research into practice. the articles are written by practicing clinical nurses and researchers in an easy to digest format that will help you bring the most innovate evidence-based practices right into your emergency room shifts. one interesting difference that sets this site apart is the reporting on trends in nursing that cover jobs, training, career development, and other aspects of the job that you won't learn in nursing school.
2. White Coats Call Room
This blog is one arm of the Emergency Physicians Monthly website. Not all the articles directly discuss nursing, but it is a fascinating and educational look at the perspectives of physicians and administrators who work side by side with ER nurses each day. In the emergency room, perhaps more than any other clinical setting, nurses partner with health care providers in a team setting, so having this first person account from a variety of physicians can help you know what to expect from your future co-workers in a high stress environment.
3. ER Nurses Blog
The author of this blog is Leslie Block, an emergency room nurse who writes about many different aspects of healthcare, and how education and prevention impacts her work. Her voice is full of compassion for her patients and the dedication for her work comes through in every word. If your interest in nursing comes from a desire to serve your community, you will likely feel an immediate connection to Block's writing. Every current nurse or potential future healthcare practitioner will find useful ideas for how to use their role with patients to improve health.
4. EDNurseasauras
If you're not familiar with the ebb and flow of excitement, terror, relief and sadness that governs an emergency room, this blog and it's retelling of everyday ER encounters is a crash course in what it takes to be a great ER nurse. The author (who remains anonymous to protect her job and patients) has decades of experience and describes herself as the "oldest nurse ever." That should give you a taste of the sharp wit and dry humor this blog brings in equal parts to the stories about encounters with patients, co-workers and even reflections on herself and her changing relationship with her career over time. The stories are sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking, but always interesting and always matter of fact.
5. Madness: Tales of an Emergency Room Nurse
Like Nursasaurus, this blog is written by an anonymous veteran ER nurse. This website, however, tells stories from an inner-city hospital that relate to the philosophies that shape a nurse's identity. Emergency room nursing, as she often points out, is impacted by the political, economic, and educational landscape of the communities that ER nurses serve. While there is some storytelling here, the best part of this blog are the national trends and reflective questions the author poses, such as "what should we call nursing?" or "what role should nurses play in the vaccination debate?" If you're curious about the bigger discussions happening around the field of emergency room nursing, this is the website to join the conversation.
Related Resource: 30 Best Online Master's in Nursing (Nurse Practitioner) Degree Programs
Emergency room nurses are responsible for keeping up with the latest research on treatment and education trends. It's also important for nurses considering a career in the emergency unit to have a realistic understanding of the demands and challenges of the job. These five websites can help you get informed about real emergency nursing and prepare you to provide life-saving patient care.