Riley Zawrotuk

Eiryn McKay
Critical Care Clinical
October 27, 2022

This week in clinical I was given the opportunity to follow a nurse in St. Elizabeth Mains

Emergency Department. During my morning I gained a great amount of experience and knowledge on

how an emergency department works and some of the roles that a nurse working on that unit is

responsible for. I was able to help start IVs, draw blood, administer medications, obtain EKGs and more.

Course objective 2. Use critical thinking, ethical decision-making, and therapeutic interpersonal skills

when caring for patients and their families with complex health problems in a variety of settings. (SLO-2)

while following my nurse I observed critical thinking, decision-making and interpersonal skills being used

throughout the day. Especially as a nurse in the emergency department it is very important to achieve

these objectives. Based on the nurse's experience she was able to use her critical thinking skills by

looking at the patient and determining what might be wrong with the patient. She was also able to use

her decision-making skills to look at what was wrong with the patient and determine the patient's needs

based on the status they came in with. Objective 3. Use effective communication skills when

collaborating with health team members and presenting oral and written assignments. Throughout my

day the nurse that I was following showed effective communication skills from beginning to end. When a

patient would come into the emergency room the nurses would communicate with each other to

determine who was going to do what task. Although a different nurse was going to take the patient

coming in for the rest of their shift my nurse would communicate to them that she could go in initially

and get blood work for them to decrease their workload. Overall, my day in the emergency department

was a great experience thanks to my nurse Kristen who was kind and went out of her way to show me

things.