My Process of Research
What did I want to know?:
Bad. That is the first word that comes to mind when people think about the emergency room, but for me it started off a little bit different. The emergency field has had a very special place in my heart because all the most important people in my life work in it. I heard many stories growing up and I always imagined what I would do in the emergency field. Would I be a helicopter medic like my mom, or a firefighter like my dad? I absolutely loved when they would come home and tell me stories about their day. Obviously they couldn’t tell me everything because of my age, but I learned a great deal. Ever since I started my mentorship in the emergency I have tried to learn everything I could possibly learn. One of my topic focuses though was the common misconceptions people have about the emergency room. I wanted to know, how can I express the common misconceptions given to the Emergency Department and deconstruct the view popularity held?
What I know already:
My research started at very early age. Almost all of my family in is the emergency field so I grew up hearing stories about the calls they would run or an interesting patient. My mother is an EMT and now helicopter medic for Airlife and my stepdad is an EMT as well. I grew fascinated with the emergency field in itself and knew one day my interest would catch up and that is where my career would be. I have always been fond of caring for people in any way that I can. I am a natural comforter and can’t bear to not help people. When I discovered my passion and calling was nursing I immediately began to research everything I could about it and knew my passion lied within the emergency room.
Even with the background that I had I came into nursing with immense knowledge of their job description and little of how it was done. I have not been in a healthcare elective class since my high school career started and although I believe that would be fun the other plans like early college and band have kept me from it. Although how hard could it be to learn the basics when you live with people in the field every day. My first day in the mentorship was very nerve-wracking but one of the strategies I have in my learning experience is that I am a visual learner so when you show me something I can almost immediately repeat it. This proved to be very useful and I quickly learned how to collect vital signs and other small things a technician would do.
After going to my mentorship a couple of months I started to pick up on patterns and different qualities of nursing that I didn’t know beforehand. For example, within the first week I discovered that a very major part of nursing that is rarely displayed through TV shows or other media is the amount of charting a nurse is required to do. After discovering this I began to wonder just how many misconceptions do people have about the ER and that lead me to my main research.
My actual collection of research:
To start my research off I completed three annotative bibliographies. The first was about the history of nursing and how it came to be. I used this article because I believe it is important to have a foundation when you start a research topic. The second annotative bibliography I did was over Nursing On Television: Student Perceptions Of Television's Role In Public Image, Recruitment And Education. I found this extremely helpful to my research because it portrayed actual nursing students’ perspectives of how television effects their view on nursing and nursing recruitment. The last annotative bibliography was over ER vs. 'ER': Are Medical TV Shows True to Life as an ED Nurse? This article was important to my research because it discussed the difference between the ER and the ‘ER’. People have formed these misconceptions about the emergency room and they are not even remotely true. It is important for us to realize that the shows we see on TV are not realistic.
To further my research my next collection of information came from my mentor herself. She has been working in the hospital setting for 20 plus years and as an emergency room nurse for at least seven. I started out by asking her my main research question, what common misconceptions do you think people have about the emergency room? With this she gave me many answers I hadn’t thought of before and provided great insight into my research. The two answers that stuck out to me the most were people believe we operate on a first come first serve. This is not true because the emergency room is based on something called acuity, which is the intensity of nursing care required by a patient. The second misconception that stuck out to me was that people believe we are primary care physicians meant to treat everything including non-emergencies.
I then asked her some questions about how she thought the media influenced people’s views. These questions are especially important to my research because there are medical dramas all over the media and the majority of them either are around or directly about the emergency room because it is a fascinating place for many people. When I asked her if she thinks medical dramas portray the role of nursing accurately and she disagreed on the account that most of the shows are extremely done up to appeal people from all over. Although she did stat that medical dramas positively encourage students to join the field by giving them excitement and passion. Overall the interview helped me collect much of the information I needed for my project and how real life nurses see the medical dramas portraying things in ways that are not realistic.
After the interview and the annotative bibliographies, I decided to use the knowledge I had discovered by mentoring in the ER. One of the absolutely biggest misconceptions I have found is their real job description. Something almost nobody hears about in medical dramas is the amount of charting nurses have to do each shift. Charting is a HUGE part of nursing and I would almost dare to say half. My first day in my mentorship I realized that you had to chart everything. Immediately after a patient is admitted the nurse fills out a primary assessment chart to get information about what is wrong, how the patient appears, and what their vital signs are when they arrive. My mentor once told me something I will never forget and that was if you don’t chart it, it didn’t happen. When you collect a blood or urine sample, you chart it. When a patient is sent to have a CT scan, you chart it. By doing this you not only keep track about what has happened with that specific patient but you also legally guard yourself if that specific patient was to sue and say you did something wrong. The ER is a crazy place and can get very busy in a matter of seconds. Following your patients isn’t always easy, but it is necessary to provide the best care you can for a patient and to always make sure you know what is going on.
What I discovered:
Throughout the year I have gathered the misconceptions people have about the emergency room and how I plan to do my part to correct them. With this I have come up with the top 6 misconceptions about the ER.
Bad. That is the first word that comes to mind when people think about the emergency room, but for me it started off a little bit different. The emergency field has had a very special place in my heart because all the most important people in my life work in it. I heard many stories growing up and I always imagined what I would do in the emergency field. Would I be a helicopter medic like my mom, or a firefighter like my dad? I absolutely loved when they would come home and tell me stories about their day. Obviously they couldn’t tell me everything because of my age, but I learned a great deal. Ever since I started my mentorship in the emergency I have tried to learn everything I could possibly learn. One of my topic focuses though was the common misconceptions people have about the emergency room. I wanted to know, how can I express the common misconceptions given to the Emergency Department and deconstruct the view popularity held?
What I know already:
My research started at very early age. Almost all of my family in is the emergency field so I grew up hearing stories about the calls they would run or an interesting patient. My mother is an EMT and now helicopter medic for Airlife and my stepdad is an EMT as well. I grew fascinated with the emergency field in itself and knew one day my interest would catch up and that is where my career would be. I have always been fond of caring for people in any way that I can. I am a natural comforter and can’t bear to not help people. When I discovered my passion and calling was nursing I immediately began to research everything I could about it and knew my passion lied within the emergency room.
Even with the background that I had I came into nursing with immense knowledge of their job description and little of how it was done. I have not been in a healthcare elective class since my high school career started and although I believe that would be fun the other plans like early college and band have kept me from it. Although how hard could it be to learn the basics when you live with people in the field every day. My first day in the mentorship was very nerve-wracking but one of the strategies I have in my learning experience is that I am a visual learner so when you show me something I can almost immediately repeat it. This proved to be very useful and I quickly learned how to collect vital signs and other small things a technician would do.
After going to my mentorship a couple of months I started to pick up on patterns and different qualities of nursing that I didn’t know beforehand. For example, within the first week I discovered that a very major part of nursing that is rarely displayed through TV shows or other media is the amount of charting a nurse is required to do. After discovering this I began to wonder just how many misconceptions do people have about the ER and that lead me to my main research.
My actual collection of research:
To start my research off I completed three annotative bibliographies. The first was about the history of nursing and how it came to be. I used this article because I believe it is important to have a foundation when you start a research topic. The second annotative bibliography I did was over Nursing On Television: Student Perceptions Of Television's Role In Public Image, Recruitment And Education. I found this extremely helpful to my research because it portrayed actual nursing students’ perspectives of how television effects their view on nursing and nursing recruitment. The last annotative bibliography was over ER vs. 'ER': Are Medical TV Shows True to Life as an ED Nurse? This article was important to my research because it discussed the difference between the ER and the ‘ER’. People have formed these misconceptions about the emergency room and they are not even remotely true. It is important for us to realize that the shows we see on TV are not realistic.
To further my research my next collection of information came from my mentor herself. She has been working in the hospital setting for 20 plus years and as an emergency room nurse for at least seven. I started out by asking her my main research question, what common misconceptions do you think people have about the emergency room? With this she gave me many answers I hadn’t thought of before and provided great insight into my research. The two answers that stuck out to me the most were people believe we operate on a first come first serve. This is not true because the emergency room is based on something called acuity, which is the intensity of nursing care required by a patient. The second misconception that stuck out to me was that people believe we are primary care physicians meant to treat everything including non-emergencies.
I then asked her some questions about how she thought the media influenced people’s views. These questions are especially important to my research because there are medical dramas all over the media and the majority of them either are around or directly about the emergency room because it is a fascinating place for many people. When I asked her if she thinks medical dramas portray the role of nursing accurately and she disagreed on the account that most of the shows are extremely done up to appeal people from all over. Although she did stat that medical dramas positively encourage students to join the field by giving them excitement and passion. Overall the interview helped me collect much of the information I needed for my project and how real life nurses see the medical dramas portraying things in ways that are not realistic.
After the interview and the annotative bibliographies, I decided to use the knowledge I had discovered by mentoring in the ER. One of the absolutely biggest misconceptions I have found is their real job description. Something almost nobody hears about in medical dramas is the amount of charting nurses have to do each shift. Charting is a HUGE part of nursing and I would almost dare to say half. My first day in my mentorship I realized that you had to chart everything. Immediately after a patient is admitted the nurse fills out a primary assessment chart to get information about what is wrong, how the patient appears, and what their vital signs are when they arrive. My mentor once told me something I will never forget and that was if you don’t chart it, it didn’t happen. When you collect a blood or urine sample, you chart it. When a patient is sent to have a CT scan, you chart it. By doing this you not only keep track about what has happened with that specific patient but you also legally guard yourself if that specific patient was to sue and say you did something wrong. The ER is a crazy place and can get very busy in a matter of seconds. Following your patients isn’t always easy, but it is necessary to provide the best care you can for a patient and to always make sure you know what is going on.
What I discovered:
Throughout the year I have gathered the misconceptions people have about the emergency room and how I plan to do my part to correct them. With this I have come up with the top 6 misconceptions about the ER.
- The emergency room is based on a first come, first serve basis. Even though you may have walked in the doors before them, if they are deemed a higher acuity they will be taken in before you because they are worse off than you.
- The emergency room takes care of things just like your primary care physician. As I touched on earlier the emergency room was originally designed to be for emergencies only, but in the world we live in today, people just don’t understand that anymore.
- In the emergency room, the nurses are meant to be at your beck and call at all times. This one is important, especially to the nurses. We may not always be back to check on you for a while, but the majority of the time it is because another patient has been admitted to us that needs our attention right away because of their injuries. Another reason it might take a little longer for us to come back is because we may not have all of the labs back necessary to tell you the route the doctor is planning on taking. When we send your blood or urine to the lab it is sent to another part of the hospital to be tested and all we can do is wait for the results.
- The emergency room is meant for any kind of trauma that walks through the door. I have had the privilege to work partly in a level two trauma hospital and there are very few traumas that cannot be solved in the hospital. The biggest trauma hospital we have here in Georgia is Grady Memorial Hospital. They have the equipment and can handle any trauma that comes their way. The majority of hospitals are not trauma centers though, which means if the level of your acuity is too high, then you will have to be transferred to a trauma center to have your wounds treated with the equipment you need.
- The emergency room is full of attractive doctors and nurses who are always in relationships with each other. This is the direct work of Hollywood that people think this. As shows are released you always have to have some sort of relationship drama so naturally the nurses and doctors are the ones who fall victim to it. The ER is a job just like every other. You come dressed in your work attire, do your job, and home. The majority of the doctors and nurses on the staff are already married and have no interest in one another.
- The job of an emergency nurse is strictly to directly take of their patients at all times. Although that is true, it is also our responsibility to chart down everything that is happening with our patients and to give all medication that the doctors order. I have already explained this one immensely and that is because I believe this is the most important misconception there is about emergency room nursing.