ER vs ICU

Find me on

P.O. Box:
532308
Los Angeles CA 90053

[toriashepherd]

ICU RN x7 years here. This is hilarious because it's so accurate. ICU and ED nursing are totally different beasts. I know my patient's history, their CT and lab results and their sister's name by the time they roll onto the floor. I often have the luxury of time to go through the chart. My ED colleagues keep a patient alive without knowing a thing about them. Much respect!

[mycroft]

My wife went to the ER years ago and ended up admitted to the ICU. The difference to my own naive civilian eyes, between the two was astonishing. ER was frenetic, high paced, the most basic questions that they needed to do their job. They literally did not care about anything else. Nor should they. ICU was extremely methodical, calm, quiet... asked every question under the sun and some I'm pretty sure they just made up to see if I'd notice. Both serve a completely different function. Thankful to both, but this was utterly hilarious.

[onemileguy]

Former ICU nurse, this skit is way to accurate. Both specialities are vital to saving lives.

[betyerpwet]

LOL! I'm an ER nurse and this cannot be any more true! Down to the tee, even mentioned how they let you give report for 5 mins straight even though they've looked up the patient for the past hour!

[ibispaintfox]

Edit- I can't believe how many likes this got, and my husband's latest echo shows no damage at all to his heart, just the stent. I am still amazed by this miracle. My husband had a heart attack the widowmaker was down for half an hour, 100% block in his artery. He had to be shocked 11x. He was on life support for a week. Then miraculously he survived. Like it never happened. The icu nurses got us thru but the er team and emts gave me my husband back. They didn't give up on him. Nurses are so underrated. They really are my heroes.

[kickbackcrochet]

My favorite report from an ED nurse EVER started like this - "I'm sending you this human...because we're all out of puppies." LOVED it. ED nursing is so random. I enjoyed my time down there and so appreciate what ED does.

[avantgarde]

The way they looked on the phone after he said he was Ben💀

[cass]

As an ICU nurse I am embarrassed but can confirm this is 1000x correct 😂😂

[kerwynbrat]

As an ER nurse I can attest to this! This is hilarious. I frequently don't know my patient's name, and what I know is their clothes are lying in pieces on the floor, the bp is tanking, someone is doing cpr, someone is intubating, I'm starting the ART line, the room is crowded and the red hat is directing it all like the finest symphony.

[fevre_dream]

Between steveioe and Dr Glaucomflecken - I think we've got a good general representation of how bizarre working in medicine can be.

[cerorchid]

Former ICU nurse. It's so true. Lol. He needs to do a skit about the tangles mess of lines the ER send up to the unit and how ICU nurses are OCD about having organized lines.

[useranonymous]

Seriously though, I’ve been in the ICU before. Those nurses are a different breed altogether. Meticulous about being meticulous is how it describe it.
Also… don’t try to get out of bed and go to the bathroom on your own there. They don’t like that apparently. 🤷‍♀️

But in the end they saved my life so we’re cool lol

[Pandorash]

I remember my late husband went into septic shock on Christmas Eve (turned out a cancer tumour in his liver had burst). The doctors prepared me for the worst. He made it through the night but was barely hanging on when I visited him the next day. ICU doctor was called down to assess whether not to transfer him. The dr calmly and silently looked at my husband and checked a few subtle things. Then shook his head and left. I said to my father-in-law, who was also in the room, that that was one doctor you WANT to be rejected by. I knew then my hubby would make it. Which he did. Though sadly he passed a few months later in palliative care. One of the best nurses we had too was one borrowed from ICU. She proceeded to re-cable the whole floor because everyone was so shabbily connected to things. She explained that in ICU everything must be just so. She was lovely (not rude about it at all) and efficient.

[JamesThatcher]

just showed this to my wife who is an IMC RN, she said "That's accurate from both ER and ICU, ER doesn't tell you anything and ICU tries to have you do everything for them before you show up... "

[jeffmiller]

Ed nurse here. I had an incubated boarder that was finally airlifted after about a day. I was also juggling two other high turnover ed beds. I only had the intubated dude for 4 hours. Just kept him sedated and vitals stable. Barely had time to look at the charts. My passdown to the airlift crew and my passdown cal to the icu was shit and I felt bad. I even got a couple condescending looks from the helicopter nurses. But you know what? I kept everyone alive and stayed afloat. That's all you can do sometimes and if people have no empathy or understanding, that's their problem to fix, not mine!

[andynonymous]

ER nurse was my second choice of career after paramedic. I didn't want to only treat a specific system or disease, I wanted to be able to do hands on maneuvers to keep them okay until they can get to the place they really need to go

[ADKEMT]

I’m an ICU nurse and this is way too accurate. I’d like to think I don’t fall into the stereotype. As soon as I get assigned a patient I’m looking them up and following the activity log in their chart. I look my patients up and then when I go down to pick them up and get report it’s just confirming what I already know and writing down anything new. I am about to do a full head to toe assessment anyways so I listen to report and if it’s not going to kill them in the elevator on the way up I’m not even going to ask. I often know the history, injury complex and plan of care just as well as the ER nurse because they are very busy.

Perhaps my one pet peeve is getting a patient that hasn’t gotten their COVID screening done. Inevitably they get to the ICU, half our staff is in and out of the room, we get a swab, and then the result comes back positive. If I don’t have a resulted test, I’m wearing PPE and minimizing personnel in the room until I know. Admin complained to me that it is not hospital protocol to isolate preemptively. I tell them that the hospital is screening all patients for a reason and it’s my prerogative to safeguard my own health.

[lisatowan]

As someone who's had 3 ICU stays (one which they didn't expect me to survive), along with stays in the ICU step-down unit, this had me laughing. The ICU nurses can definitely be over the top. I'm appreciative of all they do. I owe my life to them when the doctor failed me.

[Sniper]

ben might not be the nicest person but he makes damn sure things get done

[BREEZEMAYES]

As an ICU nurse, I take umbrance, I never trusted ER to check the skin. And yes I had the bed, drips, ultrasound, etc already in the room because I had perused the chart...