Emergency Room Nurse Specialty Program Review (BCIT)

Emergency Room Nurse Specialty Program Review 2020 – BCIT ER/ED Nursing

I have finished my specialty training to become an emergency department nurse. I am very excited but equally nervous. There is a lot to know, and I have to continuously learn from my colleagues who are more experts in this field. However I just wanted to give you guys a review of my program. I was thankfully sponsored by my hospital to complete this specialty training program and have gone through 4-5 months of the course work.

When I signed up for this program, I did not think it was going to be as challenging as it was. The program is structured like this:

You take the online course for about 1-2 months, while you work in the ER. This is theory 1.

Then you spend 2 months doing clinical 1 and theory 2.

Then you spend another 4-5 weeks doing clinical 2 and theory 3.

Overall having finished it I have a lot I want to discuss about it. But to keep it short I will talk about my experience and talk about the program in general and give some of the things that I wish I knew before going into it.

It is very intense. There is a lot to know and you will not get much free time. The free time you have you are expected to study and learn the theory but also be able to apply it in clinical. It is not like nursing school where there is a disconnect between theory and clinical. Everything you learn from theory is expected of you to be able to recite in clinical sometimes even that day you learn a concept you have to apply it later that day in clinical. There is a shift in the way you practice that you have to learn. There is a framework of assessing each patient that you do not learn in nursing school that you have to not only learn but apply in every single patient you see in the E.R. This can be challenging at times but trust me, they make sure you know it very well by the end. The overall quality of education is higher. With that being said, there is a lot that is expected of you to know and constantly remember. When you finish theory 1 and theory 2 you are expected to continuously utilize those theory concepts in theory 3 and clinical 2. This required me to review my material constantly to make sure I understand and am able to recite and talk about all the different concepts and how they are related to my patients presentation. Overall, I am grateful that I was able to pass. I am no means an expert and I actually was close to not passing clinical 2. I had different expectations of what I needed to know but thankfully the instructor was very clear on what I needed to improve to pass. I was also quite impressed with the quality of the instructors. They were all so incredibly smart, the amount of information they know was astonishing. Here is one of my colleagues on our last day of clinical and what his thoughts were

This a more in-depth review of the courses and ways that you can be more successful than me in the course! I am no ways making this video to indicate that I am smarter than people or better. In fact majority of people actually did better than me in the courses so I would even say I am at the lower end of the spectrum in terms of grades.

Disclaimer:

I am no way shape or form associated with this school other than being a student of course. I am simply providing my opinions in hopes to help. I am not funded by them and I am not receiving ANYTHING – no monetary or subsidy gains for making this video. I am making it to simply help people that is all. Hope you enjoy.

Anyways here is the program courses:

Emergency Department is made up of the following courses:

I did a review video of the whole program so be sure the check that out. The program is great, instructors are astonishingly smart but also not the type to be a power trips. They are supportive but strict on making sure you are able to understand the material needed to practice safely.

For me the theory courses were all online due to the illness going around.