ER

Yesterday was my first day at volunteering in the ED. After one day, I can say I am extremely glad that I chose to start volunteering here. It's going to be great experience, and I feel like I'm going to really get a sense of the health care system, all the people in it, and dealing with very sick people in each short three house session that I am there. The ED of my local hospital is beautiful and brand new, and they have some state of the art equipment. I think my favorite piece of technology is that device that shoots off specimens to the lab in the same manner you would deposit money in a bank through a tube that shoots back to the teller. I thought that was pretty cool. ;)

I learned so much while I was there yesterday. The ED has a fast track, pedi area, and red, yellow, and green zones. I learned that you can't force anyone into the ED, despite the fact that they may need care (we had a situation like that yesterday). I was told I would be able to watch the docs and nurses when they were working on a patient, which I am extremely grateful for. Another thing that is going to be great about this position is that I have heard and read many things about what it is like working in emergency medicine, and how the burnout rate is pretty high and it can get to be a very tense and cranky environment. I asked the person giving me a tour about what the people were like, and he said "This is a great group of people. When a serious situation comes in, people will get very serious and things will get very busy, but no one gets stressed, per se. We all work well together." It seems like I am going to be in a great learning environment then!