Acute Care

I just got back from a meeting for Acute Care NPs at the American Nurses Credentialing Center to discuss boards. The meeting reminded me of certain nuances about being a trauma sub-specialty within the umbrella of Acute Care. I'll admit that there were times in grad school when I questioned if Acute Care was the right specialty. Being around a lot of people who love cardiology or neuro or some other system made me feel a little isolated when my thing was injuries. Sure, trauma affects systems, often multi-system, but it is very different then discussing heart failure. But what other specialty would a trauma person be, right?

As I might have mentioned before, I used to work in the ER prior to becoming an NP. For anyone who has worked in the ER before, or really even just in a hospital, you know the ER is a bit of its own entity. It's like being part of the hospital, but not quite. And the Trauma Center I work for now has the Trauma bay separate from the ER. Trauma resus patients come directly to the 2nd floor to the trauma bay, which is next to the OR suites, just in case. So I have nothing to do with even the patients in the ER in my current hospital.

Despite feeling a greatly outnumbered in school, and working in areas of the hospital that can feel a little removed, I do ultimately think Acute Care was the right specialty. It seems perfect now. But being at this recent meeting reminded me that even though we are all ACNPs, we all do very different things and like different areas within our specialty. I do feel like trauma is a somewhat underrepresented, so it was nice to have the opportunity to bring the trauma perspective to the meeting.