Nursing school… AKA: living hell. A place where we put our lives on hold for five physically, emotionally demanding and excruciating semesters in hopes to someday soon have “RN,BSN” behind our last names. Nursing school is the place where we learn the ins and outs of the medical field, patient care, medications, pathophysiology of disease processes, the diseases signs and symptoms, and how to treat the specific disease, as well as charting, how to complete a patient's history and physical assessment, and more. It's five semesters of constant studying for what seems like an endless amount of exams, an abundant amount of moments questioning your own sanity, multiple mental breakdowns and leaning on your classmates to help get you through these difficult times, because unless you have family or friends that have gone through nursing school that you can talk to, your classmates are truly the only ones who understand. So far, nursing school has prepared me to be able to pass my NCLEX exam to become a registered nurse, and it has given me the tools I need to be a successful nurse some day, and I am grateful for that.

However, what nursing school hasn’t taught me is how to use my basic instincts, and how to work and react in a stressful situation when a patient’s life is on the line… This is what working as a Nurse Tech in the Emergency Room has taught me.

The Emergency Room is a place where we see a broad spectrum of patients seeking medical attention for a multitude of reasons. The patients we see range from having something as minor as needing stitches, having the flu, or having a broken bone, to as severe as having a gunshot wound, a stroke, a heart attack, and more. We take care of it all; psychiatric patients, pediatric patients, geriatric patients, the list goes on and on.

Every day that we walk into the ER for our twelve-hour shift, we never know what’s going to come through our doors. One moment the ER could be calm and running smoothly, and the next moment all hell could be breaking loose. We are constantly kept on our toes and have to be ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. There’s no time for sitting around, there’s always something that needs to be done, and there are always patients that need to be taken care of. Let’s just put it this way... There’s never a dull moment working in the ER.

Not too long ago I was called into one of our trauma rooms for a Code Blue (for those that don’t know, this patient was having a heart attack). This patient arrived at our ER by EMS with CPR in progress and was unresponsive and intubated. I had been in Code Blue situations before; however, this was the first patient I had ever been asked to perform CPR on. My adrenaline immediately kicked in and without any hesitation, I was up on the stretcher doing CPR… My hands, and my movements, were keeping this patient's heart beating; I was keeping this patient alive. There was so much going on in the room... EMS trying to give report to the nurse so that we had some kind of background and history on the patient, respiratory therapy was there bagging the patient and monitoring the patient's airway, the doctor was ordering multiple rounds of Epi to be pushed, then a round of bicarb to be pushed, the scribe nurse sitting in the back of the room, documenting everything going on, and watching the clock so as to let the doctor know every three minutes when to pause CPR to check for a pulse. It was a complete whirlwind of people moving around the room doing their designated job, yet everything was so synchronized and everyone had the same goal… To try and save the patient’s life.

After multiple rounds of CPR and multiple doses of medications given, the doctor did his exam one last time and made the decision to call time of death. At that moment everything and everyone in the room went quiet. I was asked to step out into the hallway with the doctor to talk to the family and was asked to stay with the family once they were allowed in the patient’s room to answer questions, and to see if they needed anything during such a devastating time. All of this was yet another first experience. Telling a family that their loved one passed away is not an easy thing to do, but it is a humbling experience. It makes you take a step back and realize how precious life is, and how quickly it can be taken away. It gives you perspective about what is truly important in your life, and reminds you to cherish the ones you love because you never know what the future may bring you.

It’s in moments like this that I realize nursing school could never teach me the things I am learning from firsthand experience in the ER, and that this is truly the only way I will be able to fully learn how to work, react, and handle trying situations, because a book could never teach me that. Learning how to transition from being the person to control a patient’s heart beating to comforting the family during the worst day of their life, all while trying to control your own personal emotions about the situation at hand, is something that could never be taught; it has to be learned.

Nursing school can only teach you so much. Being thrown into an actual experience… now that’s how you truly learn. I’m so blessed for being given the opportunity to work in the ER while I’m going through nursing school because it has expanded my knowledge substantially. It has completely opened my eyes to what being in the medical field is actually going to be like once I have “RN, BSN” behind my last name. It has taught me more about myself than I could have ever imagined, and it is helping me grow into the nurse that I want to become one day, and I am forever thankful for that.

Even though nursing school may be five semesters of pure hell, it will all be worth it when I’m finally done and am a nurse in the ER. Although I may just be a Nurse Tech, for now, the ultimate goal remains the same for when I become a nurse… I will always be working to better patients’ lives, and to save patients’ lives, one day at a time.