When you work in the ER, chances are, you’ll see it all. Distressing, disturbing, and sometimes downright depressing, the emergency situations you’ll be exposed to as an ER healthcare professional can be a lot to process.
But amidst the confronting scenarios you’ll be tasked with tackling, will be the heartwarming moments that will make it all worthwhile. From saving a baby’s life, to administering energy-giving intravenous injections, to reviving a multitude of patients on a regular basis – the dramatic impact you’ll be making each day on the job is work you can be proud of.
So do you have what it takes to succeed in an emergency department? If you display these essential attributes, you’re likely to do exceptionally well.
Formal Qualifications: The Essential Educational Tools to Help You Succeed in the ER
What formal qualifications do you need to be able to work in an emergency department? Quite obviously, you’ll need to be qualified in medicine or nursing. If you’re planning to take the nursing route, you’ll first need to complete a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (or BSN). Planning to take your nursing career aspirations further? Consider going from an online BSN to DNP-FNP.
Once you’re a qualified medical professional though, you’ll come to realize that there are things about working in the ER that you simply can’t learn from a textbook. These competencies take practice and need to be actively cultivated. This is especially true of the soft skills you need to develop to be suited to work in an emergency department.
Key Qualities: The Important Attributes that Can Assist with Your Emergency Career Aspirations
Some of the ER skills you’ll need to succeed as an emergency department worker are:
Staying Cool Under Pressure: The Advantages of a Calm Composure
Yes, the ER can be hectic! With ambulances loaded with ill, injured, and otherwise afflicted patients rushing in at any moment, you need to be prepared for the worst. In these scenarios, it pays to stay calm and composed. Maintaining a cool sense of control also helps you do your job better. It assists with thinking quickly, making split-second decisions, and potentially, coming up with life-saving solutions – all in a pinch. When working in the ER, time is of the essence, and every minute is precious. At all times, you’ll be required to think fast and operate optimally under stress.
Also Read: 5 Tips To Market Your Paramedics and Emergency Service
Being Empathetic: The Importance of Delivering Compassionate Care
Compassionate care means treating your patients with respect. This includes when they’ve acted recklessly, foolishly, or worse still, have purposely put themselves in danger. Viewing each patient as a human in need of your care is key to having empathy for your emergency cases. As an ER worker, this is essential.
Regulating Your Emotions: The Necessity of Compartmentalizing Your Work
Compartmentalizing is not always the best coping mechanism. But if you work in the emergency department, it makes sense not to bring your work into your personal life and vice versa. Being able to destress, decompress, and unwind outside of your working hours is vital. This can help to regulate your stress, and indeed, your emotions.
Regulating your emotions also requires you to be able to have a degree of detachment from your work. You simply cannot allow yourself to be emotionally affected by what you’re exposed to in the ER. Similarly, allowing personal problems to infiltrate your mind during working hours may cloud your judgment, and in an emergency setting, this can have dire consequences. That said, you’re allowed to process your trauma, and setting time aside for this is extremely important. If you find it hard to emotionally detach from the traumas of the ER, or find yourself unable to leave your personal worries at the hospital entrance, a licensed therapist may be able to help.
Competent Communication: Being Assertive when Needed.
Being a competent communicator and actively assertive about your point of view is central to advocating for your patients. When it comes to patient advocacy, you must be forward about what they need. Taking the reigns in an emergency scenario can mean the difference between saving someone’s life and losing them. Assertiveness does not come naturally to everyone, though. Often, it takes actively cultivating this quality to achieve it.
Working in an emergency department is not for the faint of heart. You need to be resilient, strong-willed, and composed. In addition to this, you need to be able to communicate competently and advocate for your patients to deliver the best possible care.
If you think you have what it takes, go for it. The ER is always in need of more medical professionals, and you will be an invaluable resource in terms of saving people’s lives.
Hi, I’m the Founder and Developer of Paramedics World, a blog truly devoted to Paramedics. I am a Medical Lab Tech, a Web Developer and Bibliophiliac. My greatest hobby is to teach and motivate other peoples to do whatever they wanna do in life.