An essay on the Emergency Department

The Emergency Department (ED) nurse is unlike any other. The population in the ED is highly diversified by both age and disease process. The ED cares for all ages and populations across a broad spectrum of disease, injury prevention and life-saving measures. For example, a person can come in unconscious, the next with an earache. The scope of emergency nursing practice encompasses the standard nursing process: assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and evaluation. In addition, emergency nursing practice also requires a unique blend of generalized and specialized assessment, intervention, and management skills due to the dynamic, unpredictable and complex environment that operates twenty four hours a day.