Lauren Royse, MSN, RN, of Kentucky, said she always planned to do something in the health or medicine field, but it took a bit of exploring before she found the right fit.
When her close friend was paralyzed from a diving accident, she was inspired to pursue physical therapy and major in exercise science. But after working in a PT office while in college, she realized it wasn’t for her. A class in emergency medicine set her on the right path. She became an EMT and then an emergency department tech at a Level I trauma center.
“I saw the nurses, and what they did, and they were amazing,” Royse said. “This was a whole avenue of nursing I never knew was possible.”
She went back to school for her nursing degree and held several roles before falling in love with education and working as a night shift educator at Baptist Health. In the fall of 2023, she was also tasked with the preparations for opening the new sister hospital emergency department, Baptist Health Hamburg, in April 2024.
She planned the education and training, developed procedures and designed orientation for the department, which includes 20 beds and four recliners. Her work led to one of her proudest professional moments: a full-day simulation with 52 nursing students acting as patients. Doctors placed orders; nurses escorted patients to x-ray; security handled a Code White; records were entered in the EPIC test environment. The simulation even included a birth.
“When we did open that first day, we didn’t have major issues,” she said. “We’ve learned a lot, we’ve grown a lot as a team, we’ve saved a lot lives.”
Royse joined ENA when she took her first job but when she shifted to other roles that included labor and delivery nurse, she also stepped away from ENA. She rejoined upon returning to emergency nursing.
“I missed the companionship and camaraderie ENA brings,” Royse said. “It just has so much value.” She is currently secretary for the ENA Bluegrass Chapter, and she recently participated in General Assembly as a Kentucky delegate and attended Emergency Nursing 2025—her first time doing either
Royse continues to provide education at both the new ED and the main campus, where she tells many of her new nurses to “dive into what scares you.”
“ER nursing can be a very scary thing. You have to know a lot about a lot of things, and it’s easy to get nervous and shy away from the things that scare you,” she said. She speaks from experience.
“I was so scared of kids,” Royse said, but she dove in to pediatric education anyway, and she is now her ED’s pediatric emergency care coordinator and ENPC director.
Later, she dove into research on debriefing after learning firsthand how crucial it is, and she includes it in the education she provides. She recalled a time she worked a pediatric code shortly after returning to her job from maternity leave. Caring for that infant patient so soon after her own son was born was emotionally difficult, and she wasn’t given the opportunity to process it before moving on to her next patient.
“I had a really, really hard time with that and learning how to cope with those feelings,” she said, and she wants to be sure her nurses receive the kind of support that she wasn’t offered then.
Outside of work, Royse enjoys being with her children as well as hiking and kayaking.
“I spend a lot of time outside. It really helps me ground myself and appreciate everything that there is outside the hospital,” she said. “It’s easy to be wrapped up and be sad about all the things you see here. It’s important to be able to find things you that make you happy.”