er nurse 2024-2025
er nurse 2024-2025
Emergency room nurses, also known as trauma nurses, critical care nurses, or ER nurses, are licensed registered nurses who work in a hospital’s ER. Before transferring patients to the operating room, intensive care unit, or medical-surgical unit, ER nurses are in charge of stabilizing and discharge patients who are medically stable.
Patients who visit an emergency room can be of any age or from any background, and they come in for a variety of reasons, including trauma, injury, or symptoms that start suddenly.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that in 2018, the United States saw 130 million visits to the emergency room. After visiting the emergency room, 16.2 million patients were admitted to the hospital and another 2.3 million were placed in critical care units.
These patients must be triaged, treated, and stabilized by emergency room nurses. We’ll talk about what an emergency room nurse does, how to become one, how much they earn, and more in this guide!
What Does an Emergency Room Nurse Do?
After the check-in process, ER nurses are responsible for triaging patients to determine whether they require immediate care or whether they are stable and can wait while other “sicker” patients are treated.
ER Nurse Duties & Responsibilities
- Conducting cardiopulmonary resuscitation, rescue breathing, or bag-valve-mask ventilation Cleaning and dressing wounds Discharging medically stable patients Educating patients, families, and caregivers about their disease and treatment plan Performing tracheotomies and intubations Placing Intravenous lines Responding to emergency situations throughout the hospital Setting broken bones Stabilizing trauma patients Treating critical injuries, allergic reactions, and trauma Triaging patients upon arrival to the emergency room
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