My dad was an RN in the ER, ICU, CCU, and CVICU for almost 30 years. He recently passed from brain cancer. I miss hearing his stories from being a nurse.

I’m an ER nurse. Love the saying “Jack of all trades, master of none.” 😂

I’m a long time ER nurse. I spent some time in ICU as well. For me, I can’t stand the idea of knowing what my patients whole day is going to look like. I prefer to have you just keep throwing things at me, and I will take them as they come. I will say this. If you are a new nurse, ER is fun! ER is exciting! The things that you see and do down here will change the way you look at the world. ICU Will be a continuation of your growth and learning. I would encourage any new nurse who wants to develop themselves into being the best all-around nurse they can be to do a stent in ICU before you put yourself in the backwards environment that is ER.

ICU nurse here and couldn’t be more grateful of my experiences. I salute ER nurses for their time management and grace under immense pressure but my heart belongs to ICU. I love seeing my long term patients (even post code ones) back to health and even becoming as normal as they are. It keeps my interest to know the beginning and ending of certain diseases or conditions. My critical thinking has been sharped and the growth is just always there, like there’s so much to learn every day.

As ER nurse, i think violence is pretty huge too in this setting -- unstable mental health patients or acute delrium. It can be challenging managing those in terms of our safety!

ER RN here and i wouldn't be a floor nurse ever lol i dont want to be paging doctors id rather have them right there at bedside like we do in the ER

I’m an ER nurse ( but in Australia we call it ED) and I love the chaos of it all, but I think Liz forgot to mention all the crazy psych and toxicology we deal with.

This must be heavy I respect both

I love the ER... it's really organized chaos...most days you don't feel the shift go by because of how busy it gets

I love being organized and knowing what to do so definitely ICU (that was my plan anyway), I feel like I would have major anxiety if I were to be in the ER lol. But in any case, nursing is awesome and as a fellow LPN, so excited to continue on in my journey and one day be a ICU nurse

I wanted ICU, because I work in the ER now while in nursing school. After being there for a while, I choose the ER. Treat and Street.

ER nurse! Love the organized chaos. I’ve been to ICU a few times and it doesn’t have the same energy. It can get overwhelming sometimes in the ER but each day we try to get better at managing it.

You and your fellow nurses are all heroes, regardless of any label. THANK YOU for all you do!

ER sounds like the thing for me! Organized Chaos

I don’t miss any of it at all! Flight Nursing is where it’s at! ONE patient at a time... and there’s two of us to take care of her/him!

So good to hear both sides of the story. I'm a trauma ER nurse. It feels like there's a great divide between ER and ICU. I do think that most ppl do not realize we do a focus assessment and deal with such. I feel like alot of nurses get upset when maintenance fluids are not hung or central lines are not placed. I have had 2 ICU pts before and a HAMS, and I have to choose what orders are critical. I find it frustrating that we do not always support each other in this field. (We don't have CNAs either)

I have been an ICU ( MICU & CCU) for 43 years and recently retired. I love the ICU because I like being organized and prepared if my patient crashes or I get a trainwreck from the E.R. or an in house cardiac arrest that we put on Artic Sun hypothermia protocol. My unit gets IABP, Impella's, Watchman's, Strokes and neuro cases, CVVHD dialysis and the list goes on. It can be very hectic and stressful and now my unit is a covid unit for the sickest ones. I do like getting to know my patients and families better than an E.R. nurse is able to do because their goal is to move them out ASAP. People need to know that patient outcomes are directly related to the nursing care they receive in both departments and that we nurses are the best advocates for our patients.

Thank You for all you do! My blood pressure is a bit astonishing now and again for this reason I'm in and out of the hospital my hat is off to you both.

I wish more ICU nurses were as understanding of what us ER nurses deal with!💓

Thank you for this video!! I’m starting a graduate nurse residency program in the ER in July so I’m trying to be as mentally prepared as possible! Lol

ER RN. I love the unknown of what's about to fly through the door. My motto, "Hair on 🔥 till I retire"

this was helpful! thank you :) i feel like i had a feeling ER was more chaotic just cause you have trauma coming in right away but it’s nice to hear firsthand

I am starting nursing school Aug 31st and my dream job is to become an ER Nurse in a trauma 1 hospital!!!!

Great and informative video. Happy that I found your channel. I will be starting my new position in the ICU as a new RN. I’ve been an LPN for 4 years. I’m a bit nervous, but excited to build on my nursing foundation.

Love this video!!!!! And the conversation is something I'd wanna be a part of as an aspiring ER nurse

I know I’m only 12 but I was thinking about being an ER nurse and this sounds like it’s the job for me! Thank u for this it’s so informative! :)

Uhh - I am a medstudent and I just discovered your channel 😍 definitely here to stay! 😊

This was so helpful. I’m finally going to be starting nursing school. I have always thought I wanted to be in the ER because I worked well with organized chaos in the military. This has just confirmed the ER might be for me!

Just changed my major from Psychology to Nursing. This was a great video. Thanks for posting!

I´m currently studying and i must say that definitely ER caught my attention

I think I still want to be an ER nurse. I have always wanted to do that! Thanks for the insight!

I think I would have to choose ICU! I like the idea of things being much more organized and knowing what is to be done and expected for the day. I'm not sure that I could handle the organized chaos like Liz...(:

I would definitely chose ICU!

I’m a surgical nurse on a floor. I’m very organized and my goal is to get into ICU. Great information on both areas!

Im a cath lab RN, i think in the lab you get a little bit of both, it's super chaotic while your stabilizing a pt with impella or pacing or coding the pt or RSI, or all of those at once but once everything is set and they are semi stable things calm down and become very detail oriented, for instance managing anticoagulation/ACT timing, sorting lines and managing hemodynamics becomes very detail oriented. I love the lab! Haha

I would definitely choose ICU! ER nurses have so many patients throughout the course of their shift and I would much rather just have 2 that I know everything about

I get like 8 or more patients in the ER. Getting 4 is gonna be like a breathe of fresh air!

Coming from a respiratory therapist. I loveeee my icu nurses ❤ You learn a lot more in the icu.

See a pic of me teaching Ebola protocol....I co-developed at VA hospital Louisville KY. I also standardized all crash carts. Also I reduced critical lab errors by 50%...yes!!! FIFTY PERCENT!!! How cool is that! Saw an issue, worked to initiate changes. I love being a nurse!!!

ER Nursing! I am going to be doing my High Acuity lecture next semester which should be interesting

I was an ICU/CCU nurse in the beginning days of ICU the late 70’s. I loved it. I hated to get pulled to ER so much. The not knowing what was coming through the door was too stressful. I’m a Capricorn that likes her ducks in a row. You at least got a report before the patient arrived in ICU so you could mentally prepare.

I'm a nursing student with previous EMS training/work experience and intend to work in both ICU & ER once I get my RN, so this video is helpful to me.

ICU Nurse here from Malaysia! Great to hear from both of you 💪🏼

Just accepted my first job in the STICU! This video solidified ICU nursing for me, no doubt. Thank you guys for your amazing work!!!

I start nursing school in January and I'm looking forward to being a nurse in the ER!!

ICU! Both bc I have experience on a pulmonary unit with vented pts and bc I live in a small town and I wouldn’t want to see someone I know come from a trauma before they were stabilized.

Coming from an ICU nurse, ICU ALL THE WAYY😆

I’m a CVICU RN and I am way too organized and detail oriented to ever work ER! Plus I love my ECMO, impella, IABP, CRRT, CVOR patients! Love my coworkers in ER! They’re amazing!!!

I love this channel. thanks for sharing your life.

I am a float RN and have been to all units in my hospital. So far, I really like the ICU because they are more organized and the charting system is easier to use. The ER is great because you experience so much but I feel like where I work, the charting system needs some work and there are a lot of mental health/drug user patients that end up boarding in the ER for days at a time before being placed. Sometimes the assignment is all boarders so it is like being a floor nurse some days.

I’m a tech. I work on med/surg and I can have up to 13 patients to myself and it can be so overwhelming.🥺 but I love my patients and try my best to be there for my patients and help the nurses as much as I can. I can’t wait to be a nurse one day.

Loved this video!! I’m torn between both so this really gave me more insight ❤️

Can you guys do a segment on Respiratory Therapist learning so much from this channel

I love doing both accept I live in Little Rock Arkansas where half the city was demolished by tornados a few days ago so I’m be happy to be back in ICU.

First advertised video that was worth clicking on. Really interesting and informative!

probably ER nursing, it seems more interesting and fast paced

100% ICU.. I can’t do the chaos. I need strict organization with my OCD lol

I'm an ICU RN that started out working EMS while in nursing school and continue to work there for my county so I kind of work in both worlds. Basically, I run enough 911 to know that I wanted to be an ICU nurse when I got my RN😂😂 I enjoy being able to hand off my 911 patients to the very talented ER nurses and say ,"I'll see ya again soon in the ICU when they get you stabilized." Being able to be a part of someone's care from the point they needed 911 to the day they are well enough to move up to med-surg is a real blessing. May God bless all nurses regardless of where we work. Much love to all! ❤️❤️

This video was very useful thank you so much and yea I'll pick the organized chaos lol aka ER. Thanks again for clearing the picture.

I would pick ER over ICU. Thank you for the video. I am going to go into nursing school this year and am looking into the different areas to get an idea of what interests me the most. This video was very helpful.

I likely have PTSD after a few years nursing in a busy ED. 'Organized chaos' is too kind. Its combat. And the dead haunt you.

Appreciated the comparison but i hope you also discuss how difficult to endorse patient from ER to ICU. :)

Thank you both I was in icu for 12 days on a ventalter for 10

Worked in the ER for a bit and starting ICU in april this year. It's so diffenrent in my country, in the ER i had to care for up to 30 pts myself, damn i would have been bored with 4 lol, in my ICU we have 3-4 pts per nurse, that sounds like a blessing to me.

Retired ICU nurse from a hospital that was not a trauma center , except we had a burn unit so that could keep us running as they would transfer out more stable, post op burns to us to make a room for a new burn when needed. We would also sometimes be pulled to the burn unit when they needed staff, which was always a learning experience. In our ICU we typically had 2 patients , rarely 3 patients but if you had to staff someone a third patient it was important to consider the acuity of all 3 of them & definitely not assign someone 2 patients & an empty bed as those empty beds often filled with very acute patients. I do miss the ICU and that it was never dull , the saying "never a dull moment" definitely applied to my job.

so interested in both, more ICU . you both are gorgeous btw!

I have a better appreciation for nurses especially ICU nurses. My aunt was in the ICU for about a month. They didn't believe she would live but still treated her with dignity. Once she started recovery and was basically delirious they were patient with her. They let us send her things so she knew we were thinking of her. She left with new friends and promises to go back and say thank you once she is strong enough. I'm studying to be a nurse and have my mind set on psychology but I'm interested to experience the ICU and ER.

Organized Chaos......perfect description of ER!!

Thank you for your videos you have encouraged me to make a similar channel about nursing school

This was fun haha do more!!

Wow where are you located because I worked in the ER for 5 years and our nurses would have anywhere from 4-8 patients at once. It was so unsafe and unregulated and no one but the nurses cared. They worked so so hard.

I'm a PACU RN in australia and I'd say is a perfect mix of ED and ICU!

I am not a nurse-a happy special education teacher here, but if were an ER nurse, I would probably prefer ICU over ER just for the chance to build relationships with the patients and families which seems less likely to happen in the ER. I would also be a little nervous that violence which may have brought a patient to the ER would follow them there . Does that happen often?

What hospital are you from?. This is lovely to see the ICU RN understanding that the ER RN can't necessarily do everything that is scheduled. A very good explanation about the difference between these two very important and distinct specialities in nursing.

4:1 sounds really nice actually. Our ER doesn't have the staffing for that!

Done both for 15 years each. Love both sides. 2 rooms would of been nice. I have had 6 rooms for ER and more than 2 patients in ICU when we were short

I could probably do adult ICU, not peds. I could probably do ER for adult and peds. Pediatric ICU just hits too close to home and I don’t think I could do it. I respect you both!!

Planning on becoming an ER nurse. It sounds fast paced and is what I really look forward to doing.

I've been an ICU nurse for several years and have been thinking about going to the ED this year. Thanks for this video, so helpful! The idea of having more than 2 ICU pts definitely freaks me out but as long as I never have to do chg baths again I'm good LOL

As a first responder and soon to become a nurse this year, I couldn't chose between ICU and ED. However, as I am working on my preceptorship in the ER, I absolutely feel like I am home, so I made a decision to pursuit ER. Funny but when I told my Chief' I was thinking about ED, he told me, "of course you are going to the ED, that's where you belong"

My dad recently had his last heart attack and was brought into his closest hospital that has a heart unit , he was in alot if pain and they couldn’t get his vtach to stop so th had to shock him while awake in ambulance on the way which did nothing and he said it hurt like no other but when brought in ER he was immediately taken to cath lab and was in there 3 hours cuz his heart was anatomically incorrect so they were unable to punch thru to get get oxygen to get oxygen to the hole half of his heart and the heart specialist couldn’t believe he lived thru that but when they finally got thru the heart on that side the heart was pretty much dead but my dad was still alive cuz my dad is one strong man but he had these butterfly ivs on both arms they used to try to keep his blood pressure up cuz it was very low and they had to do the pressure oxygen too but my dad is tuff although taking any breaths was ver short and you could tell was very hard and short and he couldn’t stand up without losing his balance and the ICU docs told us he was in so many meds that was keeping him alive and without them he would pass so scary but my dad knew and my dad hated hospitals especially after being in the Korean War and what he seen so after a few days he called me and said he wanted to go home as I heard him ask the doctors what was the point of them giving him all these meds when e knew it was just prolonging the inevitable especially when he kept going into v tach which is a fatal heart rhythm & that’s when he did the DNR CUZ HE DID NOT WANT TO BE SHOCKED AGAIN ESPECIALLY KNOWING THAT THERE WAS NO WAY HE WAS GONNA LIVE WITH ONLY HALF OF HIS HEART WORKING & there was no improvement over the last few days & he had the butte

I'm taking a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) in college. I want to be a Nurse, but I don't know what Nurse specialty I want to work in. This type of video helps me in decision-making. I'm still not sure... I'm going to work in Newyork, that's the state I want to work in. Hoping and manifesting to pass the NCLEX exam someday!!

I work Long Term Acute Care, currently in a post-acute-medical unit, I have an average of 20 patients with on-going admits and discharges, I pass my own meds, provide wound care, and over-see ADLs. Aside from politics; understaffing; and random arising issues, I have patients on IVs, Trachs, ostomies, hospice without DNRs, fall risks, combatives, psych pts, etc. I'm in school right now and have a little over 2 years to complete my BSN and want to work ICU 😅

I like the idea of fast pace work bc I’ve worked in fast pace restaurant as a waiter, but scared the fact i may accidentally miss something for a patient and harm him/her. It is nursing not serving I can’t make a stupid mistake.

As an ICU nurse, it's ICU all the way! Although the most love I've felt is when I floated to ER one day. It was incredible! My respect goes out to every person in the hospital, it's a team effort!

It's a tough call especially since I've had both rotations for clinicals. I leaning towards ICU because I would love to be in the NSICU

i am an ER Nurse , ER is life. spontaneous and challenging. an ER nurse can handle any specialty / any emergency

This was a super informative video! You should totally do an ICU vs OR video! I can give some great advice on how to give 0 warning and no information about the patient before we come up to the ICU!😂 haha no but that would be a great video!

I feel confident that I could step in to any role offered in nursing because of my skills acquired as an ICU nurse including ER. Further, most advanced nursing programs encourage applicants to have ICU experience before applying. But I tip my hat to ER Nurses, because they deal with the unfiltered reality of what comes into our hospital and it ain't very pretty at times.

I work both departments as an RN :)

ICU 100 percent I lke organization all around

Wow the nurses at my job (nursing home) sometimes have 22 patients, “residents” at once.

Both areas are super Excellent areas of Nursing from what I've learned. I believe for me I'm more Geared for E.R. nursing die to my Military 🎖️🪖 Marine Corps Background. Fast paced controlled chaos etc..

Both! I can’t decide 🤍

ive done both!!! very different but ER for the win

In my 43 years of critical care nursing, I’ve done both ICU and ER. YES, there is a big difference. I prefer ER. Focus on one issue for the patient: what did they come in for. Not a million different issues. But I’m a certified critical care nurse, I can also pick up on issues that ER nurses may miss due to what their priorities are. I have to drop the ICU RN hat and put on the ER hat.

ER for sure...love the fast pace environment.

I was ER Trauma, Orthopedics and Neurology.

I am a new grad nurse and I wanted to start in ICU. I got the ER and will be starting soon. Normally, I am the the of person who gets organized and like to know what to expect..uncertainties gets me stressed and anxious..I love details and stuff..but hey life, learning and growing are all abt facing challenges.. and me starting up in an ER as a new grad is one of those challenges..thanks for ur video..and I look forward to it..

I'm going to My College to study for ER Nursing! I'm so excited 😆❤️😁