“You need to be taking care of patients who are awake.”
Those words from a hospital recruiter in 2012 steered Alison Harmon MSN, RN, CEN, into her emergency nursing career. Harmon had just completed a BSN/RN program and landed an interview for an OR job.
“I loved the OR and the ICU, I loved the drips and the calculations,” Harmon said. But when the recruiter asked Harmon to consider an ED job instead and she shadowed both open positions, Harmon’s decision was easy. About two years later, she moved to University of Iowa Health Care, where she is now director of nursing, department of emergency medicine and transport services and director of nursing crisis stabilization unit.
Harmon, who has been an ENPC and TNCC instructor for about 10 years, joined ENA during her first job.
“(The education) is what hooked me,” she said, and now that she is a nurse leader, “it is so nice to hop on (an ENA CONNECT) message board and see what other people are doing.”
Harmon briefly left work in 2020 after the birth of her twins, her third and fourth children. Colleagues enticed her to apply for a new position while changes were underway at UIHC, both in leadership staff and in the triage space expansion.
“In my mind, I was coming back for a short period of time, just to help get over the hump. It was 2020, COVID and all of that,” she said. “But when you are working with your second family, it’s hard to just walk away.”
One early change was adopting a “vertical-horizontal” model of assigning beds only to patients who need to lie down and moving others to internal waiting rooms. That and other steps led to a dramatic left-without-being-seen rate drop to below two percent.
Nurse recruitment and retention have also improved, she said, helped by a culture that considers everyone—nurses, doctors, technicians, social workers— to be one ED team. Not only does she strive for transparency and staff input, but she also encourages the department to gather for fun, such as bike rides and tailgating at Iowa football games.
Harmon tells new nurses it’s OK to feel overwhelmed, and to ask for help.
“I felt like I was thrown to the wolves, and I don’t want that for anyone,” she said of her own first shift in an ED. “By no one’s fault of their own, they didn’t have time to stop and tell me everything.”
She wants all her nurses to be confident self-advocates, to be sure they know where to find their resources. She also pairs new nurses with experienced ones to build a “safety net” for them.
Building trust, sharing resources and helping people advocate for themselves are all skills Harmon uses outside the ED, too.
Five years ago, she and two friends – a doctor and a social worker – founded the Johnson County Human Trafficking Coalition to teach people how to identify potential trafficking victims and talk with them in a way that is helpful.
She recalled one patient who had been in the ED multiple times and a provider suspected there was a trafficking situation. The provider talked with the patient, and their suspicion was confirmed, but the patient wasn’t ready to leave the situation. It was hard to watch, Harmon said, but that person has since returned to the ED, and Harmon sees that as a positive.
“It’s a good example of why you have to have a conversation in the right way, so you can build trust,” Harmon said. “The patient has come back, and that’s because they know they’re safe.”
Paul Lacey, BSCN, RN, ENC(C) has spent much of his career educating fellow emergency nurses, with an eye for helping those new to the specialty become competent and confident in the unique environment of an emergency department. A new member of ENA’s Global Advisory Council, he also has a background in seeking commonalities among people regardless of where they live.
“I was essentially a new grad in the ED,” Lacey said, having started as an emergency nurse within a few months of earning his license. After about six years, he switched to the ICU, but gravitated back to the ED, and he became a nurse educator in 2009.
Lacey still thinks about how to help those new nurses in his role as Clinical Lead with the newly created Provincial Emergency Services at Ontario Health, a program intended to improve emergency services throughout the province. One of his current projects is to develop and provide virtual orientations and training to small, rural and remote locations that don’t have a nurse educator or sufficient resources.
“I could stay in the ED and plug holes or try to fix the whole bucket,” said Lacey. “We have to be hiring those new grads, so how can we get them up to speed and ready when they don’t have that two years med/surge experience to be able to understand what nursing is at its core and how to apply that to a fast-paced, rapid turnover environment that we all know and love?”
Emergency departments in Canada are not immune to the difficulties many hospitals around the world are facing.
Lacey joined ENA mainly for the subscription to Journal of Emergency Nursing that came with membership, he said, but he became more involved after attending first ENA annual conference – Emergency Nursing 2018 in Pittsburgh. When the event’s welcome party ended, he decided he wasn’t ready to call it a night.
“I turned to someone and said, ‘Where are you guys going?’” he recalled.
The person happened to be with a group of Indiana nurses, who immediately invited him to join them for the rest of the evening.
“Since then, Indiana became my ENA family,” he said.
His involvement in ENA grew. He attended more conferences, got involved in General Assembly, and he was appointed to the Global Advisory Council for a term that began this year. ENA also helped him meet more emergency nurses from Canada, which inspired him to get involved in the National Emergency Nurses Association in Canada.
Lacey’s interest in worldwide connections started when he was young, when he participated in an exchange program through CISV International, an organization that runs international camps and exchange experiences for children and teenagers with a mission of promoting peace. He lived with a host family in Finland, and later, as a volunteer leader he took campers to Brazil and the Netherlands. Coincidentally, he met Walter Lugari, ATCN, BSN, RN, of Germany, who also served on the Global Advisory Council, at an ENA annual conference. Lugari recognized Lacey’s name, and they realized they both were involved in CISV.
“ENA has become very important in my life, in my nursing career, and my professional identity,” he said. “The fact that there is so much focus on building international membership and strengthening that bond and community came at the right time.”
Jennifer Herrmeyer, BSN, CEN, CPEN, RN, TCRN, recognizes the “red flags,” those subtle clues that indicate her patient or coworker could be in an abusive relationship. At one point in her life, she waved a few of those red flags herself. Herrmeyer endured years of abuse from the man who was once her high school sweetheart, but turned into a controlling, abusive boyfriend and then her controlling, abusive husband.
“I tell people to read between the lines,” Herrmeyer said. “How is the person acting? How is the partner acting? Look at the eye contact. Do they hesitate before they answer a question?”
In 2000, after 14 years with him, Herrmeyer was able to leave and turn her life around. She received therapy and read lots of self-help books, learning to protect herself from falling into another trap and regaining her self-confidence. She remarried into a healthy relationship, and she and her husband have two young adult children.
She also found healing by spending time in nature. She attended a wilderness medicine conference that made a strong impression on her, and she reads research on the therapeutic effects of the natural world. She volunteers with Boy Scouts and at a camp for girls run by her church, where she teaches skills like first aid and kayaking while trying to foster the campers’ self-confidence.
Now an ED nurse at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, Herrmeyer also tries to teach others, especially other nurses, to identify signs of intimate partner violence. Nurses, of course, can be in a position to help. They are also more likely than the general population to be in an abusive relationship themselves, Herrmeyer said.
She challenges people to reject the assumption that leaving an abusive relationship is easy, or that they themselves would never wind up in that situation.
“People say, ‘If someone hit me, I’d be out of there.’ But you don’t go along, la-la-la it’s great, and then someone hits you,” Herrmeyer said. “It sneaks up on you, little by little.”
She encourages people imagine scenarios that might prevent someone from leaving their abuser.
“I see a lot of condescending remarks and eye rolling,” Herrmeyer said. “I see coworkers say, ‘Oh, they’ll never leave.’” Financial insecurity, concern about their children, or death threats from the abuser are some of the reasons someone might not be able to escape at a particular moment.
Growing up, Herrmeyer initially thought she would teach art or music. But while they were still in high school, the then-boyfriend wanted her to go to nursing school while he went to medical school. A self-professed “science nerd” and daughter of an Army medic, she said the idea wasn’t too far afield, and it ultimately led to a career she loves.
A nurse Herrmeyer met while teaching ACLS and PALS encouraged her to join ENA. She found it to be “a good network of supportive people” who helped her see that she had much to offer in and out of the ED. She began teaching ENPC and TNCC several years ago.
When she learned in 2019 that her ex-husband had died, Herrmeyer felt ready to share her story. In 2022, she presented at a Minnesota State ENA event, where she was encouraged to submit a proposal for the session on intimate partner violence she delivered at the Emergency Nursing 2023 conference.
“It was freeing to be able to talk about it, to look at the situation from the outside, and to be able to help other people not get into the situation or get out of a situation,” Herrmeyer said.
Peter Plahmer, RN, BSN, who has spent several decades responding to emergencies – first as a police officer in Wisconsin and then as a nurse—now spends much of his time in the communities around his Arizona home trying to keep people out of the ED in the first place.
As Banner University Medical Center’s trauma outreach and injury prevention coordinator, he promotes campaigns that are relevant to EDs in his area, from teaching about gun violence to dehydration.
Plahmer is working to establish a violence interrupter program which will connect volunteers who have been shot or who were in gangs to talk victims in the ED to reduce recidivism.
The interrupters will be able to “get in there right away and talk them off the ledge to prevent retaliation,” Plahmer said.
Some of the education campaigns Plahmer promotes are universal. He runs Stop the Bleed training in a variety of locations: from churches to municipalities to a county department of public works. He also teaches people how to prevent dehydration and wilderness-related injuries, particularly in the winter, when so many out-of-towners arrive in Arizona to escape the cold.
“There are hikers who get into serious trouble,” he said. “They’ll come out here and take an 8-ounce bottle of water, and it’s 110 degrees out. They just don’t know what to do.”
His trauma outreach team participates in the El Tour de Tucson, one of the country’s largest cycling events, to emphasize safety and promote the Tucson Loop, which is a motor-free bicycle trail in the area.
Emergency nurses and police officers aren’t easily shocked, but one thing does surprise him, he said: the number of people injured in car crashes who weren’t wearing seatbelts. He said a nearby stretch of interstate is particularly notorious for motor vehicle accidents.
“It’s 75 mph, so people are going 95, 90,” Plahmer said. Making it even worse, he said, is that children are involved. “It never ceases to amaze me. You can educate people till you’re blue in the face.”
He won’t stop trying, though. This fall, his team worked with Banner’s child life professionals to run a teddy bear clinic at Reid Park Zoo for up to 1,000 children to explore the zoo and learn about animals’ health, as well as their own. Representatives from his trauma team talked about bicycle safety and seatbelts.
Plahmer’s first exposure to emergency care was as a new police officer in Sheboygan, because at that time rookie cops were required to complete EMT training. It did not appeal to him then.
“I took no joy from that. I didn’t want to be on an ambulance. I hated going on medical calls,” Plahmer said. If someone told that rookie cop then that he would one day excel as a nurse, “I would have said ‘you’re crazy.’”
But when he moved with his then-wife to Arizona in 2003, he used the change to try a new career as an ED tech. He later returned to Wisconsin, earned his ADN in 2008, and worked in a Milwaukee hospital before taking a travel assignment and returning to Arizona. He has also worked as a flight nurse, and at the age of 59, earned his BSN.
Plahmer said nursing appeals to his self-described type A personality in ways police work did.
“You’re working in a team. You make quick decisions. There are high levels of stress,” he said. “There are a lot of parallels.”
Nashia Williams, RN, BSN NY-SAFE, CCHP, realized early in her 20-year nursing career that she is drawn to emergencies. Her first positions as a nurse were primarily in med/surg and oncology units, but she really liked the times she floated in the ED.
“I would always lean toward or chase emergencies,” she said. “If something really crazy happened, I would want to be there.” She’s been an emergency nurse in New York hospitals for the past 13 years, currently as the assistant director of nursing, hospital operations at South Shore University Hospital. She is also a certified correctional health care provider and has also worked for about 18 years at Nassau County Correctional Center.
From chest pains to overdoses, attempted suicides to intentional injuries, she sees plenty of similarities between the hospital and in the correctional facility, and she cares for patients in both places the same way.
“You have to know that everyone has baggage, and in the correctional facility, I don’t look at the charges,” she said. “Someone’s backstory created the person. It humanizes and humbles you.”
The state of carceral care is one of the topics she and longtime friend Kate O’Connell—an emergency nurse with a background in writing and audio production—tackle during “National Emergency,” a podcast the two created that launched earlier this year.
The podcast, available on Audible, explores some of the toughest challenges in this country, challenges that impact the people rolling into emergency departments on stretchers each day. Williams, O’Connell and their guests tackle medical misinformation, sex education, gun violence, Black maternal health and more.
“To go to Puerto Rico and see it was so undeserved, it took away the whole paradise aspect of it,” she said. “The hurricane only exacerbated the ills of that area.”
The Puerto Rico mission left an impact on her, and upon her return to New York, Williams considered becoming a flight nurse—another chance to chase the emergencies. She moved to Albany and worked in an ED to get ready for her new role. But, Williams said, she missed her people, decided against the flight training, and returned to the city for another ED.
Her ”people,” her network of nurse friends, are Williams’ biggest source of support in her challenging jobs—followed by the comfort of her adorable “little fur monster, Holly Grace” and a stack of trashy romance novels.
Williams also recharges when she travels. She recently came back from an educational trip to Cuba, where she visited the national health ministry, a community care center and a hospital. She’s also taught in India.
Despite the challenges and emotional demands, Williams still doesn’t consider what she does to be “work.” It’s what she loves. But she hopes that more people, not just nurses, listen to the podcast and think about nurses as well as the issues being discussed.
“I want people listening to the podcast to know this is more than just a job we signed up for,” Williams said. “It’s important to treat your nurse like a person, like how you want to be treated and respected.”
As Michael Callihan, PhD, RN, CEN, NRP, says, nurses are problem-solvers. From a U.S. Navy submarine to a fire station to an emergency department to the classroom, Callihan has been finding solutions and leading others to become problem-solvers on their own.
While he was in the Navy, where he was a machinist mate 2, submarine qualified, Callihan had his eye on a future career as a firefighter. Following his military service, he spent eight years as a firefighter/paramedic in Ohio, where he saw a lot of the emergency department. He decided to give nursing a try, and initially thought this new career would mean more pay with less work.
“I went to nursing school and realized soon after that the nurses were working hard. It just looked different than what I was doing as a paramedic,” Callihan said. But he had found another new way to thrive as a problem-solver under pressure.
“I was on a submarine. And if something goes bad out there, you’re kind of stuck and you’ve got to fix it. And if you sit back and panic, everybody dies. And as a firefighter … if you didn’t do your job appropriately, there were some pretty bad consequences,” Callihan said. “And the ER is the same way. We see some of the nastiest things ever, and we still have to do our job.”
When Callihan shifted into an EMS coordinator position at his hospital, his role included training and continuing education at area fire departments. That’s when he “fell in love with teaching.” He went on to earn a master’s in nursing education and PhD in nursing.
As he pursued his advanced education, he studied biomechanics, electromyography and motion capture technology, which helped him discover that he also enjoys research. He combined his new technical knowledge and pre-Navy background as a personal trainer to explore injury prevention, including safe lifting procedures in the ED. He and several colleagues have also created a shoe-based pressure sensor system that received a provisional patent as he continues to develop and test further as part of his work on injury prevention.
Callihan’s work has been published in the Journal of Emergency Nursing, which has recognized him for his contributions as a peer reviewer. He is a 2023 inductee into the Academy of Emergency Nursing, and he has served ENA through chapter and state levels, as well as larger ENA committees.
Over the past few years, he said he has noticed more men entering nursing, and on campuses, he has worked with veterans affinity groups and with American Association of Men in Nursing chapters. He shares his experiences when he can, particularly as someone who entered a female-dominated profession after working in two male-dominated professions.
“We have to thrive off of each other’s differences, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to connect with similarities,” said Callihan, who added that connecting despite differences is so important to both work relationships and for nurse-patient relationships.
“I have sung to patients, especially during COVID,” said Callihan, who has performed with a traveling Southern Gospel group. “Anything to make them feel special and that somebody actually cared.
“(The pandemic) really brought back the art of nursing. We had a lot of science. But anywhere you looked, you’ll find that a lot of nurses really connected to patients on a human level with patients during COVID,” he said. Callihan now teaches at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and works at the MedCenter of Greensboro at Drawbridge Parkway. If anyone asks what he does, he can answer without hesitation.
“First and foremost, I’m an ER nurse,” he said. “I’ll probably work as an ER nurse until I can’t anymore.”
Rachel McFadden, MPH, BSN, RN, CEN, has devoted much of her professional and volunteer efforts to caring for people who are marginalized, particularly those struggling with substance use disorder.
“There is still a lot of stigma about drug use,” said McFadden, who is an emergency room nurse at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and works in the social services agency Prevention Point Philadelphia’s wound care clinic.
McFadden works to ensure a patient’s dignity is protected, no matter their circumstances, whenever and wherever the person is receiving care. Sometimes that’s the ED, sometimes it’s at the wound care clinic or even on the streets where she has volunteered to help unhoused people get the care they need.
While she feels very passionately about destigmatizing substance use disorder, McFadden knows that preaching about it to peers isn’t the right approach.
“If I do what I feel is right, people are watching,” she said. For instance, she once worked with a colleague who was “an excellent nurse, but she didn’t have a lot of patience for people with substance use disorder.” After they worked alongside each other for a while, the nurse said, “I really appreciate how you engaged with these folks,” McFadden recalled. Later, McFadden learned that nurse was dealing with her own emotions surrounding a relative struggling with substance use disorder.
“It’s about meeting people where they are. I assume that everyone I work with wants what’s best for their patients,” McFadden said.
McFadden initially planned on becoming an infectious disease doctor. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biological sciences at University of Chicago and started working at an HIV clinic in Chicago staffed by many doctors and one nurse practitioner.
“I met her (the NP), and I was like, ‘Oh, this is it. This is what I want,” McFadden said. She moved to Philadelphia and earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania. She recently completed her master’s in public health administration from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
In addition to direct patient care roles, she is also a Bloomberg Fellow with Penn Center for Addiction Medicine & Policy, conducting research and leading nursing education, such as one program earlier this year to build awareness around Xylazine, which is responsible for some of the wounds she herself has treated among her patients.
“I love nurses. Nurses can make or break a visit (to the ED) for anyone,” McFadden said. “I care about stigma because as nurses, we are in a powerful position.
“We can be such a place of respite,” she said of the ED. “One safe night off the street can be powerful.”
McFadden knows that burnout among nurses is real, and she has worked to prioritize her own needs to avoid it. One of the ways she cares for herself is by heading into the wilderness for respite and a recharge. Her love of the outdoors even led her to obtain a wilderness medicine certification through the National Outdoor Leadership School several years ago. She said that her NOLS experience proved useful when she was doing street-based emergency medicine, and she plans to renew that certification.
McFadden said she wants to see better support for nurses, particularly trauma-informed care. When nurses don’t have the care they need, it’s much more difficult to give of themselves, she said.
“You have to protect the emotional health of nurses,” McFadden said.
Lisa Campana, BSN, RN, CEN, MICN, believes in embracing each day, sharing her talents and pursuing adventure. The emergency department at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, California, where she is a charge nurse and the hospital system’s 2023 Nurse of the Year, is just one location where she carries out what she calls her “severe passion for life.”
In June, Campana completed her fourth medical mission, a five-day trip to the Philippines. Emergency nurses are, of course, no stranger to intensity, but Campana said the missions are “a different kind of intense.” She joined a group of volunteers who worked at Stanford Health Care, and over the course of three days in 2022, they cared for 1,800 people. The group returned to care for another 2,300 people in 2023. Prior to that, she volunteered with Women for World Health in 2018 and 2019 to care for patients receiving cataract surgeries in Peru and Ecuador.
“We helped many elderly people who had never seen their grandchildren,” Campana said. “After surgery, they would open their eyes, see their family and break down crying in gratitude. Just that alone is magnificently purposeful.”
Campana in turn, felt gratitude for the people she had traveled to help.
“These recipients gave us the social and emotional support we need in our lives,” she said. “It’s an essential reminder that the overall needs of most are unconditional, compassionate care and love.”
Her colleagues at Hoag certainly see and feel her compassionate care. When they nominated her for Nurse of the Year, they praised her clinical excellence, patient-centered approach and nurturing demeanor as she goes above and beyond in her role. Campana is quick to give credit to Hoag, saying the hospital’s leadership truly collaborates with and supports its nurses, as well as stays at the forefront of many best practices when it comes to emergency nursing.
“The Hoag family has truly helped me grow into who I am today,” Campana said of the place she’s spent her entire nursing career. Over the past decade of her career, she has also been an active ENA member and will be a delegate for the third time at this year’s General Assembly in September.
Campana said she was raised in a commune in upstate New York where she lived a rather carefree lifestyle. At 22, ready to find a clearer path forward, she moved to California, where she met her life partner, Bryan, and worked in marketing for about 14 years. She may have moved forward, but she still hadn’t found where she truly wanted to be professionally by the time her mother suffered a stroke and spent several days in the ICU prior to passing away. That experience revealed her new path.
“I should have been a nurse,” she recalled saying. “This is where I belong.” With encouragement from the nurses who had cared for her mom and her own friends in nursing, Campana overcame her uncertainty, changed her focus and enrolled at Golden West College Huntington Beach to begin her second career.
Campana loves hiking and traveling—she has explored parts of South America, Southeast Asia and Australia—but there’s one place she doesn’t want to leave.
“I love my job so much, and I can’t wait to go to work. I can’t imagine going anywhere else,” Campana said.
Stethoscope; thermometer; blood pressure monitor; ultrasound machine: Sarang Raj, RN, wants to see that fourth tool become almost as common in the ED as the first three.
“I am a huge fan of the use of point of care ultrasound,” said Raj, an emergency nurse at UMass Memorial Health Alliance-Clinton Hospital, Leominster Campus and a self-proclaimed “ultrasound nerd.” Raj has set out to learn as much as he can about ultrasound under the guidance of his mentor, intensive care physician Dr. Gisela Banauch, MD, and with at-home simulation training.
“I’m in the room every 15 minutes; I’m the person at bedside; I’m collecting their data; I’m getting the vitals. It’s a wasted opportunity,” Raj said. “As an emergency nurse, I’m recognizing so many ways of collecting data prior to a physician entering the room.”
He envisions nurses using the Focused Assessment with Sonography in Trauma protocol for trauma patients to help expedite treatment decisions. The Bedside Lung Ultrasound in Emergency protocol can be useful in diagnosing a patient with shortness of breath, which can have many causes. Ultrasound is another way to see if a congestive heart failure patient is responding to diuretics.
Raj wants to push for this resource and formal education opportunities to be available for more nurses. He said he loves to rock the boat, and it’s paid off before. He successfully pushed his university to allow a group of nurse practitioner students taking anatomy to learn in the cadaver lab.
The first spark that helped ignite Raj’s interest in nursing came when he was 11 and had to be coached over the phone by an emergency operator to take his grandmother’s pulse while waiting for an ambulance to take her to the hospital. His grandmother recovered, and Raj was on his way toward a career he loves. In high school, he volunteered in a hospital near his home in California, then earned his CNA, CCMA and EMT license.
That high school experience is where he encountered his next spark: He saw the echo of a newborn baby’s heart.
“That blew my brain,” he said.
Raj holds a degree in psychology from the University of Illinois-Chicago. He is currently pursuing his DNP in Adult-Gerontology, Acute Care Nurse Practitioner track at the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing at UMass Chan Medical School, where he is the DEI student representative for the Graduate School of Nursing Organization and is also involved with the Nurses for Equity and Justice Coalition.
He joined ENA when he started his position in the ED, and he said he particularly likes the Journal of Emergency Nursing, something one of his mentors always seemed to be carrying with her.
“I love seeing what nurses are doing to change the nursing profession. We see things in a much different perspective than physicians do,” Raj said.
Raj thinks back to that childhood call with the emergency operator often.
“Here I am now, basically restarting hearts with my colleagues, fixing people,” Raj said. “It’s such a great honor.”
As a member of the ENA Emerging Professionals Advisory Council, Adam Lawrence, BSN, RN, CEN, CTRN, TCRN, EMT, encourages any new nurse to get involved in the ENA, saying it’s “full of passionate and intelligent nurses that all want to develop themselves, improve practices, and make a positive impact on institutions and entire populations.”
Lawrence himself has worked to improve practices in his hospital, particularly in the way stroke patients are evaluated. Working with a team from his ED, pharmacy and the stroke medical director, Lawrence developed an app that easily calculates initial boluses, infusion rates and volumes for tissue plasminogen activator to speed care for stroke patients and lower the chances of errors. He also helped develop a stroke-specific documentation narrator for the hospital’s electronic health record to increase efficiency and reduce staff workload.
Lawrence is quick to express gratitude for his mentor, Gwen Williams, RN, CEN, who supported him in those projects. He also learned that he, too, loves teaching and mentoring. While pursuing his master’s degree to become an adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner, Lawrence divides his time in the Rochester Regional Health System in New York as an ED nurse and a nurse educator, as well as a per diem assistant professor. He likes to lead educational activities for the nursing team and prehospital providers, and he is an instructor for the ENA Trauma Nursing Care Course. He encourages new nurses to absorb all that they can from ENA.
“I wish I had attended more events as a new nurse and started building connections and my professional network even earlier in my career,” said Lawrence, who earned his Bachelor's in nursing in 2019. “There are opportunities everywhere in ENA, and it all starts by taking that first step by going to meetings, getting involved, and sharing your thoughts and ideas.”
For years, Lawrence didn’t think he’d be able to take his first step as a nurse at all. The son of a pediatric nurse, Lawrence knew he wanted to work in health care at an early age, but an immunodeficiency nearly derailed that goal. After many hospitalizations and frequent infections, Lawrence’s immunologist told him he was at too great a risk for contracting a potentially devastating illness to work in health care. Partway through his undergraduate years, however, his immune system had adapted and stabilized, and his new doctor gave Lawrence the green light to follow his career passion. Lawrence dropped industrial design, transferred to a nursing program, and started as an EMT.
“Just like my own medical situation as a child, emergency nursing isn't always pretty, but it's about having the strength, knowledge, and determination to see things through even when the odds are stacked against you,” Lawrence said. “I'm immeasurably proud to be an emergency nurse.”
Why did you want to become a nurse?
I had very good role models. My mother was a nurse and I grew up reading her old nursing books, so one would think nursing would be a logical choice for me. My mother’s youngest sister was also a nurse. She followed her dream of using
nursing to help people around the world. Later, she became dean of the college of nursing at the university where my uncle was the president.
However, when I got to college, I told my dad I want to go enroll in fine arts. My dad told me, “ I am paying for tuition, so you are going to enroll in nursing.” And so I did, being the obedient child that I am. Once I was accepted to St. Luke’s School of Nursing, I knew that there is no question, I have to pass. No flunking. My dad was superintendent of schools and I had to live up to expectations.
There are no regrets in my choice of nursing as a career. It is one of the best things that I have ever done. I guess “father knows best,” right?
Once I became a nurse, I had to put my whole life into it. I am proud to be a nurse. I am proud to say I am an emergency nurse.
What has made ENA special for you?
Joining ENA is a first step. Becoming involved in ENA, whether in the state council or nationally is the next step. Once I started attending the annual conference, I realized that there is a whole new world out there. ENA is full of talented,
knowledgeable emergency nurses. I have met so many people and made many friends throughout the years. Going to the annual meeting each year is like a family reunion to me. ENA has afforded me the chance to get more from and give more to, emergency
nursing. ENA helped me grow professionally and personally. For this, ENA has opened many doors for me. I never thought I could get up and speak publicly, but through programs started by two emergency nurses, I have been speaking to high school students
about teen driver safety for the past 25 years. I never thought of writing for JEN, but I did. Through encouragement from Sue Sheehy, I have published 10 articles. Through ENA, I have learned how to be active on advocacy and be part of the grassroots
coalition in my state. I was invited to witness the signing of the Illinois Graduated Licensing Law by Governor Jim Edgar.
What advice would you give to yourself from when you started your nursing career until now?
Find your niche, find a specialty that appeals to you and be good at it. Don’t be afraid to spread your wings and try new things.
To the older me, I say to always remember how you felt when you were a new nurse, afraid to try your wings, afraid you will make mistakes. Keep this in the back of your mind when nursing students are doing clinicals in your department or mentoring or precepting new nurses to the department.
Being grounded will make you a good preceptor. Be a good teacher. Be a great mentor. Always pay forward. It is rewarding.
Emergency nursing is not all about the thrill of taking care of traumas. There are good days and there are not so good days. There are times we celebrate the “saves” and there are times when we have to lean on each other to get us through the day and beyond.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I love spending time with family, especially my grandchildren.
I love traveling to experience the world, but I am always glad to come back home though.
I have been to 55 countries and all the continents except for Antarctica.
I love teaching child passenger safety, at least 12 three-day classes a year. I help out with car seat checks.
I still talk to high school students about traffic safety during their driver’s ED classes
I volunteer during the Bank of America Chicago running events including the Chicago Marathon in October and the Shamrock Shuffle in March.
I belong to a women’s golf league and golf on Tuesdays from May to September
I love to do needle crafts such as needlepoint and cross stitch - my house is full of finished projects.
I love to read – last year I finished 75 books. Since January, I have read 20 books.
I love building Legos I am working on the grand piano and the Fender guitar right now.
Thank you, Thelma for your hard work and dedication to emergency nursing!
Haylee Carlson joined emergency nursing in 2020 as a new nurse graduate after working as an emergency manager in the Air Force Reserves. Looking for a community of support, she immediately became involved in ENA locally looking for a community of support. Now, Haylee is a member of the ENA Emerging Professional Advisory Council and enjoys working in a pediatric setting.
Tell us about your journey in emergency nursing, including your future plans.
I first developed an interest in emergency services and the ED when I was working as an emergency manager in the Air Force Reserves. I served for eight years and discovered I really enjoyed the medical response side of the natural disaster and man-made emergencies we prepared for and responded to. I decided to give the ED a whirl in 2016 where I began working as a tech and haven't looked back. I graduated nursing school in 2019 and started working in the ED right away as a new grad. I've worked in various settings including the back of an ambulance for 911 response and interfacility transport, a small critical access hospital, a busy community hospital and a few trauma centers. One of my favorite experiences has been serving on trauma outreach programs to educate the community to prevent traumas when possible. I currently work in a Level I trauma center in the south and in a pediatric primary and urgent care office. In the future, I hope to get the opportunity to spend some time in a dedicated pediatric ER and eventually pursue an MSN!
How has ENA helped you along your journey?
ENA has been a blessing in many ways. As a military family, we move around the country fairly frequently. ENA has helped me connect with new local mentors and given me assistance in finding new workplaces when we relocate. Serving on ENA's Emerging Professional Advisory Council has been an awesome opportunity to find better ways to encourage and support new nurses, which is something that I am extremely passionate about.
What do you enjoy doing outside of your career in Emergency Nursing?
I enjoy spending quality time with my husband and toddler; connecting with friends and family over game nights and campfires. I also love being outside in nature, especially when afforded the opportunity to explore a new national park or sit on a beach with a good book.
Kristine Powell is a lifetime ENA member and a 35-year ED Nurse. Not only that, but Kris is also a longtime volunteer with ENA. She has served on a number of committees and advisory councils and held countless roles within her state and chapter. In honor of National Volunteer Week, ENA asked Kris to share her story with us.
Her journey in emergency nursing.
This year marks Kristine’s 35th year in emergency and trauma nursing. She started working in the emergency department as a graduate nurse in 1987. Over the years, Kris has served as a staff nurse, charge nurse, ED/trauma educator, injury preventionist, trauma program manager and ED director. She is currently the divisional director of emergency services for the North Texas Division of Baylor Scott & White Health.
In 1989, several Texas Tarrant County ENA chapter officers visited the local ED to personally invite nurses to attend a chapter meeting that evening. Kris joined ENA that night and became an active member in the chapter by regularly attending meetings. She soon became a TNCC instructor and faculty and, later, an ENPC instructor and faculty. She helped develop a CEN review course with a group of Tarrant County ENA members and continued to update and teach the course for almost 20 years. When Kris became a chapter officer, she was introduced to the Texas ENA State Council and became active with committees and its board. After taking on increasing roles of responsibility at the state level, Kris applied for a national committee and was accepted as an inaugural member of the ED Operations Committee. Since then, she has served on several other national committees and is currently a member of the Quality & Safety Advisory Council. Kris also contributed as an ENA liaison to other professional organizations, currently doing so as liaison to the Emergency Department Benchmarking Alliance 2022 Summit. In addition, she has delivered poster and podium presentations at ENA’s annual conference and has authored several chapters in the ENA Core Curriculum. Kris was proudly inducted as a Fellow in the Academy of Emergency Nursing in 2015 and is currently on one of the new AEN Trailblazer workgroups.
How volunteering enhanced her experience with ENA
Over the past 30 years, Kris’ ENA volunteer activities have kept her refreshed and invigorated with each new adventure. She has met many professional colleagues and learned much from them. Kris has been mentored by the best in emergency nursing, including Sally Snow, the nurse manager who hired her for her first job. She gained leadership and professional skills which helped to lead and mentor in the ENA world. Kris has received ENA scholarships that allowed her to advance her education and travel to new places, make many friends and laugh – a lot – along the way.
What she enjoys outside emergency nursing?
Outside of work, Kris enjoys spending time with her husband, Joe, two rescue dogs and a herd of cows on a small ranch south of Fort Worth, Texas. She feels lucky to have family close by – her parents, a brother, three sisters, including her twin sister, and her own twins, Stephanie and Eric. Kris also enjoys reading, crafting, crochet, cross-stitch and calligraphy.
Shelley Cohen is a long time ENA member, over 35 years! She originally made the transition from critical care to the ED in 1980, and that is where she has remained ever since. Shelley was inspired by ENA’s mission and passion for improving skills and knowledge for emergency nurses after her first annual conference, and shortly after earned her CEN. She was intrigued with the triage process and developed a passion for teaching and writing.
ENA provided the perfect platform to blend opportunities for national speaking engagements and publishing opportunities. For more than 20 years Shelley has been working with ED staff nationally (and sometimes internationally!) to help them improve triage decision making and competency. Learn more about Shelley below!
1. Tell us about your journey in Emergency Nursing.
I began my nursing career as a neuro nurse at the VA Medical Center in Boston and quickly got the urge
for emergency care while studying for my EMT license. After several years in critical care and in the prehospital setting, I made the move to emergency nursing and never looked back. From ED staff nurse to ED nurse leader, to nurse educator and now back to staff nurse, it all comes full circle. In addition to my current ED staff nurse role, I am a preceptor and assist in assessing educational needs of new graduates and other new hires. 46 years ago, when I graduated nursing school, I never imagined being an ED nurse practicing during a pandemic. Role modeling as a professional Emergency Nurse has always been important to me and mentoring the next generation of ED nurses is more important than ever.
2. How has ENA helped you along in your journey?
Let me count the ways ENA has helped me in my journey! From speaking opportunities at state and national ENA events, being an exhibitor, publishing articles in JEN, contributing as an author to other ENA publications, and so much more. And if that wasn’t enough doors opened by ENA, in 2009, I went back to school to obtain my MSN with the help of a scholarship from ENA. In 1997, I stepped out into the world of entrepreneurship and started Health Resources Unlimited, an education and consulting company with a focus on ED triage. The connections I was able to make through ENA developed into a strong business model that continues to thrive today.
This journey also included serving on local and national ENA committees and work groups, which I encourage all members to consider being involved in. Lessons learned from these commitments serves us well in any role we play on our ED teams.
3. What do you enjoy doing outside of your career in Emergency Nursing?
My husband Dennis and I are Associates for the Wounded Warriors in Action Foundation (WWIAF.org), a nonprofit that serves Purple Heart recipients. We sponsor 3 hunting events on our property each year that serves heroes from across the country. This is our 9th year working with WWIA and each event is a humbling experience. We are also home to some horses, dogs and cats and a vegetable garden which provides hours of de-stressing time. With all of those activities aside, nothing is more rewarding than being a grandparent and a great-grandparent!
At first, pediatrics made Claudia nervous, but she wanted to become more confident in the care she was providing to children. She also wanted to become a resource for other nurses and the care that they provided to pediatric patients. Claudia decided to become an ENPC Instructor, but that wasn’t enough – she wanted to know the course better and to challenge herself further, so she volunteered to join the ENPC Review Committee which is hard at work developing the latest edition. Click below to learn more about Claudia’s experience volunteering with ENA.
As an ENPC Course Director and Faculty, Claudia is using her knowledge and experiences to help design the course to fit the needs of emergency nurses. She specializes in rural populations that have many complex and difficult health disparities to overcome and can represent that patient population and their needs when providing input for the course. Claudia has been contributing to the PNP video for the pre-course modules, reviewing content for chapters of ENPC, 6th Edition, and TNCC, 9th Edition, as well as lecture and course content for ENPC, 6th Edition. Claudia has been learning and getting inspired from her peers on the committee. She shared with ENA that “It’s inspiring and exciting, and renews my passion for emergency nursing, supporting my profession, and learning.”
Thank you for your hard work on the latest edition of ENPC, Claudia!
Her journey in emergency nursing.
Antoinette has a steadfast past with 30- plus years as an emergency department nurse, progressing from a novice stretcher-side nurse to management, leadership , and professional development roles. She believes strongly in life-long learning, and it shows in her background. Her career began 45 years ago with a certificate as a nursing assistant granted by the Virginia’s state board of education. Soon after that, she became a licensed practical nurse and shock trauma technician. By 1984, Antoinette was a registered nurse and began to hurdle each step from an associate degree, to a BSN and then to her MSH. She continued to complete several post-graduate courses before retiring. Even in retirement, Antoinette actively participates on a biomedical ethics committee and is an active ENA member.
How ENA helped her along in your journey?
ENA has continually renewed her passion through networking, growth opportunities such as being published in the Journal of Emergency Nursing, and conferences. ENA provided a means to jump from novice to expert in the field of emergency nursing, especially with courses such as ENPC and TNCC, where she achieved instructor status. ENA also enhanced her knowledge and skills through specialty certification. She is a proud to be a board certified emergency nurse for 35 years. She served a term as president for a local chapter and forged long-lasting bonds with many members. At the March Tidewater ENA chapter meeting, she will present a topic closely related to the #RechargeChallenge.
What she enjoys outside emergency nursing?
Soon after retirement, Antoinette began writing. She recently published a book titled Leadership in Retrospect: From the Stretcher-Side to the Boardroom that presents a simple conceptual framework based on tried-and-true theories and practices. The book concludes with clinical notes on her 10 stretcher-side lessons. These pages can help you successfully navigate the nursing profession, whether at the bedside, stretcher-side, or in a boardroom.
John Caaway is an ENA student member who recently graduated nursing school. John recently accepted a new grad nurse position at a Level I trauma center and is excited to dive into the emergency department as soon as he passes the NCLEX. Learn more about John.
What drew him to emergency nursing.
The teamwork, energy, autonomy, critical thinking, variety, continual learning experience, and making a difference - everything about ED nursing attracted John. He volunteered in an emergency department and/Level II trauma center while completing prerequisites for nursing and then externed in the emergency department and /Level I trauma center during his last semester of nursing school. John was inspired when he saw intelligent, sociable, and dedicated people working together to uplift each other and helping the families of patient’s have better days during difficult times. John hopes to explore every possible role the ED/trauma center has to offer and eventually be able to lead other nurses and nursing students.
How has ENA helped him along his journey?
In so many ways! During his ED externship, he reviewed the “learn” section on the ENA website so he could implement best practices. Now that he is about to start his nursing career, John has been using the ENA website to develop theoretical knowledge, review different career pathways in emergency nursing, and gain understanding of the various certifications available. ENA is very visible in his community of nurses. John attributes much of his current career success to his participation in ENA.
What does he enjoys outside of emergency nursing?
John loves spending time outdoors with others. Don't be surprised to catch him traveling, hiking, or at the beach, sports arena or amusement park?
Iman Mohammed, who joined ENA as a student member, recently graduated with her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Thomas Jefferson University in Pennsylvania. Learn more about Iman, her experiences with ENA and her excitement as she prepares for work in the ED.
“I am a firm believer that everything is fate and there is no such thing as a coincidence. This belief of mine is further solidified when my mind wanders to where I came from and where I am today. My family and I are from the country of Sudan, more specifically a very rural small town two hours out from the capital. At the age of 8, my family and I received the opportunity to join my father in the United States of America.
I strived in my studies and quickly learned that the nursing profession was the career for me. Two degrees later, my heart is still in the ED. My first degree was a bachelor’s in ethnic studies from the University of Colorado - Denver and my most recent is my bachelor’s degree in nursing from Thomas Jefferson University. Next steps for me include taking the NCLEX in June and to join the ED team that is the right fit for me, and me for them. In the meantime, I spend my time as a hospital float pool nurse extern at Thomas Jefferson Hospital.
The ED interests me in many ways. I love the unpredictability, the fast pace and the variation in patient population and medical conditions. I am a person who has experienced constant change and movement. It is now a part of who I am and where I feel most comfortable. ENA has helped me find a community to foster my growth and the growth of our community. This is a community where nurses and student nurses in the ED can receive and give support. Furthermore, ENA provided me with the platform to network and get to know my colleagues.
Although I live in Philadelphia now, my childhood and adulthood were spent in Colorado. I say this because I love the outdoors and I love to hike. I am happy Pennsylvania also has a lot to offer with its vast greenery and many trails to explore.”
Tell us about your journey in the ED.
I started working as a new grad on med surg and began doing ED work a year later. In 1981, a little over a year after I started working in the emergency department, my supervisor approached me about
attending a two-day ENA conference in the Twin Cities. At the time I really didn’t know anything about ENA. My supervisor made all the arrangements, all I had to do was get myself there, about 100 miles. I went, I saw, and have been hooked ever
since!
After that, over the years, I’ve attended hundreds of hours of ENA education and courses which have helped me become a successful emergency nurse. Not only that, but it also benefited my facility, my colleagues, and the patients we care for. ENA is the very best provider of high-quality emergency nursing education.
What do you like most about attending emergency nursing conferences?
What I like most about attending emergency nursing conferences is learning. It’s good to be with other emergency nurses and laugh together. Attending conference renews
my enthusiasm for the everyday work I do and challenges me to do it better. Recently a co-worker said to me, “I don’t know how you’ve been able to do this all these years.” Without ENA, I’m not so sure I would have been
able to.
What do you like to do outside of your role as an ED nurse?
For fun, I am a member and keeper of the data base for the Doris Club of the Upper Midwest. The club is made up of women named Doris, who get together for fun and fellowship. I
call them my Doris friends. Some of the old names, such as Cora and Evelyn, have made a comeback in recent years, but so far not Doris.
Alexus Moore, MSN-ED, RN, has been an ENA member since 2017 and is currently serving on the ENA Emerging Professional Advisory Council.
“I graduated from Longwood University in May 2017 and all throughout nursing school, I did not know what kind of nurse I wanted to be. Cardiac and neuro interested me, however,; it was not until the summer before my senior year that I fell in love with emergency nursing. I was selected by Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center in Norfolk, Virginia, to be a nurse extern for the summer in their ED. After that summer, the rest was history. My senior year, I did my internship at Centra Southside Community Hospital in their ED and wanted to be an ED nurse badly. It was not until I was about to take an offer at another hospital that , I was given a chance to be new graduate nurse at Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center in Mechanicsville, Virginia. I started in July of 2017 and loved every minute of being a new graduate nurse in the ED.”
What about the Emergency Department interests you?
“The ED interests me because you have to use critical thinking with all of your patients to give them the best care they deserve. Critical thinking, I believe is so hard to teach, but if you can learn how to use it then you can do well in any ED and do well in nursing. Not only do I love the critical thinking piece, I love that every day is unpredictable because you do not know what medical conditions and patient population will walk in through triage or through the EMS bay.”
How has ENA helped along your journey?
“ENA has helped me in so many ways! I was able to receive a scholarship from the ENA Foundation to complete my MSN in Nursing Education. ENA has helped me find some of my forever friends and network with thousands of nurses around the world. ENA has helped me gain leadership skills from the chapter/state level all the way up to volunteering on multiple national committees. ENA ultimately has helped shape me into the nurse and strong woman I am today!”
Tell us something fun about yourself!
In my free time, I love to work out and jam to music in the gym. I have always been very athletic and competitive, and working out lets me do that in so many ways. I also enjoy being a mother to my 2-year-old daughter and a wife to my amazing husband. The three of us are excited to be welcoming a chocolate lab puppy in the next week!
Dave joined the Navy Nurse Corps in 2011 and is currently stationed at Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune in North Carolina as their ED CNS. He serves as the Navy's specialty leader for emergency/trauma nursing responsible for a community of more than 300 ED nurses across the globe. He currently holds the rank of lieutenant commander and has been selected to be promoted to commander in September 2022.
Tell us about your journey in the ED.
My journey into emergency nursing started the summer of 2003 as a nurse intern in the ED at Morristown Memorial Hospital in New Jersey. I was hired into the ED as a new graduate extern the following year and that is where I honed my nursing skills under the mentorship of Gayle Walker-Cillo, who is still a mentor of mine today. In 2009, I started as an ED clinical nurse specialist at Overlook Hospital in New Jersey and then joined the Navy Nurse Corps in 2011. In my brief 10-year Navy career so far, I've been an ED CNS at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, NMC Camp Lejeune, the ship's nurse on an aircraft carrier, chief nursing officer of 2d Medical Battalion and am currently the Navy's specialty leader for emergency/trauma nursing. This year, I was humbled to be inducted into the Academy of Emergency Nursing.
How has ENA helped you along in your journey?
My mentor Gayle recruited me into the ENA shortly after getting my feet wet in the ED. The community, camaraderie, mentorship and networking it provided me as a new graduate was invaluable. As I became more involved in chapter, state and national levels of the ENA, those networks expanded across the world. Those mentors and networks have been tremendously helpful in continuing my professional growth as both an ED nurse and CNS since I joined ENA in 2006.
What do you enjoy doing outside of your career in emergency nursing?
I am an avid sports fan. I tend to watch more sports than I play at this point in my life, but still enjoy playing basketball. I enjoy spending time with my family including my wife Kelly and two children, Madison and Caleb. I enjoy volunteering on humanitarian missions to the Dominican Republic with the Foundation for Peace and serving on the North Carolina ENA Board of Directors.
Aaron Salinas has been an ENA member since 2014. Awarded the ENA Foundation's ENA Doctoral Scholarship in 2020, Aaron recalls the overwhelming emotions the day he opened the letter from ENA.
“I first found out that I had been awarded the ENA Doctoral Scholarship in the early part of the fall 2020 semester. The cost of education can be very costly. I will never forget getting that letter and an email saying that I had been awarded an ENA scholarship. A million thoughts and emotions went through my mind at that time, but the most important one I would have to say was grateful. Grateful to be selected from a pool of applicants to be awarded a scholarship is very humbling.
It is common for many people not to realize their true potential until it is put to the test. We can accomplish many things that we may not have thought we would be able to do so. My parents both had elementary – middle school education, I am a first-generation college graduate in my family. ENA has believed in me; it has invested in me and my future as a nurse, leader, clinician, patient advocate. I have been extremely fortunate enough to have become part of the ENA as a novice nurse. I have been blessed to be a part of a very close-knit chapter in the Rio Grande Valley and have been mentored by many great nurse leaders. I am also highly thankful for being part of the best ENA state chapter, the Texas Chapter. I feel like I am forever in debt to my Texas ENA colleagues as well. They have all been incredibly supportive, accessible, and able to work and mentor me as I continue to pursue my studies and develop as a nurse leader.
My advice to any nursing and non-nursing students pursuing an ED Path – get involved and engaged with your professional chapter and organization. Do not be afraid to ask for help and support from other colleagues who may have more experience. As a Hispanic who has overcome all the odds and has made a difference in his profession and his community as a nurse, be open-minded. Take every opportunity to learn and grow. Do not focus on the negative things but look at the positive things. I think most importantly is to stay humble. Listen to your patients. Listen to your heart and follow your dreams. Si se puede – Animo.”
Lisa is the administrator for the new Emergency Educators Community, which launches in February. Learn more about Lisa below and join the community to connect!
“I am an RN Education Specialist in the Emergency Center at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. I was a paramedic for several years before graduating from nursing school in 2010. I started my nursing career in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, first as a bedside nurse and then as the unit educator. I spent a few years after that working in our central clinical education department, where I oversaw our hospital’s general nursing orientation. In March 2020, I had the opportunity to combine my ‘roots’ in emergency medicine with my passion for nursing education, and I haven’t looked back since!
When I’m not at work, I’m a wife, mother to a 7-year-old daughter and a wrangler of our four-year-old Australian Cattle Dog. I love spending time outdoors, scuba diving, and reading mystery/suspense novels.
My favorite thing about emergency nursing is that no two days are the same, and we need to be prepared for anything. I love the challenge of keeping up with the latest research and integrating it into clinical practice. In my experience one of the best ways to do that is to collaborate and learn from other nurses. I’m excited to be a moderator for the new ENA Emergency Educators CONNECT community, and I look forward to learning from my colleagues!”
Hershaw Davis Jr. has been an ENA member since joining as a student in 2007 and is now a member of ENA's Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity Committee. Learn more about Hershaw below!
“I am clinical faculty at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, as well as a float pool nurse in the Johns Hopkins Adult Psychiatric Emergency Department. I was a volunteer EMT and ER Tech before finishing nursing school in 2009. I began my career in the Johns Hopkins Adult Emergency Department. After some years, I decided to become a nurse case manager in the Johns Hopkins Department of Medicine, as well as the Johns Hopkins Department of Adult Emergency Medicine. After working as an adjunct, I decided to pursue my passion for educating the next generation of nurses by joining the faculty of my alma mater. I am blessed to be able to pass down the pearls of wisdom imparted to me while I was a nursing student.
When I am not at work, I love to travel and go to great concerts.
My favorite thing about emergency nursing is that it is never a dull moment. The diversity of patients and experiences, I feel prepared me to be a well-rounded nurse. Beginning my career in an academic emergency medicine department combines my three loves: clinical practice, education, and research. I am excited to be a member of ENA’s inaugural Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity Committee and I look forwarding to giving back to ENA because it has given me so much."
Vientiane Pajo, BSN, RN, CEN, TCRN, is an ENA Lifetime Member. His dedication to the profession has strengthened as he joined the ENA Trauma Committee in 2021, his first formal ENA committee volunteer experience.
Tell us about your journey in the ED.
Serendipity by perception, but providence in grand design.
In 2015, I started working at our Level II trauma center ED after moving from cardiac and med-surg observation. It was a very big adjustment in mindset and approach to patient care, continuity of care, critical thinking and considerations, workflow and team dynamics, and learning. Initially, it was overwhelming, but there was so much support from my work family as each one wanted to succeed and continue to grow regardless of years of experience. They applied the same concept as the camaraderie and mentorship in the military – a majority of them served for many decades in the military.
I was then introduced to ENA by local leadership and members. This opened an entirely different world in every facet of ED nursing to me. ENA took everything I hope for and love in nursing – specifically, ED/trauma and exponentially magnified it in an accessible way: for all, by all, and to all. It was here I met life-long friends who changed my life forever. It’s both a family and community – and I feel safe and secure with ENA.
The journey eventually led to precepting nursing students in our ED, which I’m both thankful and passionate for, and becoming a part of our trauma team as one of its leaders. With other like-minded people, we pursued BCEN certifications to be able to provide further evidence-based care to improve patient outcomes and advocate for both nurses and our patients.
ENA’s heart beats for both the nurse and our patients and communities that we impact, whether it be in direct care, policy and legislative areas, education and so much more.
My entire ED journey has changed every facet of me. We stare into a darkness so vast, yet equally so do we cast a light to pull people out of it. And with this light to comfort one another’s flickering flames.
That is truer now, more than ever, in these present times.
How has volunteering on the ENA Trauma Committee enhanced your experience with ENA?
I am surrounded by inspirational and passionate people, who have become life long friends, who continuously impact and change nursing in ways I can never adequately put in words. They taught me how I can better utilize ENA’s tangible resources,
but more so, what can never be quantified – the intangibles. To say that this experience is life -changing is an understatement and in no means an exaggeration
It has also placed me in the company of people whose mentorship and friendship, constant encouragement, expertise, and availability taught me more about who we are as ENA and who we can be for others, both members and non-members.
Volunteering with everyone, given our committee charges, the work we do and ENA’s support, has instilled in me a sense of fulfillment as a person and nurse. This is because we are given the opportunity to collaboratively discern and improve patient care, outcomes, and continuity of care; equip our fellow nurses and providers; be an advocate and voice in the agency of trauma care and its continuum, thus impacting this generation and the years to come.
Do you think you’ll continue with volunteering after your term ends on the Trauma Committee?
I would both very much love and be humbled to serve others in any way possible in ENA at any level of involvement!
What do you like to do outside of your role as an ED nurse?
Outside of work, I love spending time practicing my faith, with my family at home and reconnecting with loved ones online in the Philippines. At times, I help tell the stories and celebrate life: of families, couples, and engagements through
photography. I’m hopeful, after more training and experience, in the future I can also offer the same for couples who want an elopement wedding.
Currently, I am saving to pursue advanced studies with a Doctor of Nursing Practice and taking the initial steps to study and train to become a pilot. This is so I can expand how I can serve and help others. I wouldn’t have realized it was possible if not for one of my friends on our ENA Trauma Committee.
Dawn Peta, BN, RN, 2021 IAC Chairperson (Canada)- The biggest challenge is remaining hopeful in an environment that at times seems hopeless. I work as an educator and casually as a front-line nurse so it's important that we are keeping up on current guidelines and maintaining certifications to ensure patient safety.
- I am inspired everyday by the countless efforts made by my colleagues, front-line workers and those working behind the scenes to ensure we have supplies and resources to continue the fight. I am inspired by the day-in and day-out work to provide care for others, work that seems to sometimes just be taken for granted.
Vanessa Gorman, MSN-ED, RN, CCRN, FAEN (Australia)- In Australia, as I am sure every country in the world especially now, recruiting people to work in emergency nursing and then sustaining good retention rates is still front and center.
- I am inspired by many things that include the positive impacts you can have in people’s lives. My colleagues inspire me, my ability to positively impact on the next generation of emergency nurses and lastly I am inspired that even after 25 plus years I have never stopped learning. ED nurses are an amazing group of human beings.
Joop Breuer, RN, CEN, CCRN, FAEN, ENA Board of Directors (Netherlands)
- In my country, the biggest challenge facing emergency nurses and all nurses I think is how to make our profession attractive to young people. We are fore seeing a massive shortage of nurses in the years to come. Young people are more likely to look for a career in finance or IT because you can earn more money there.
- My inspiration for being an ER nurse is very well captured in this quote from Maya Angelou which I came across quite some years ago: “Try to be a rainbow in someone`s cloud". This captures for me the essence of me being a nurse.
Margaret Dymond, BSN, RN (Canada)
- The biggest challenge I feel we face in Canada will be a critical nursing shortage in the years to come. This will add increased workloads to front-line staff who are already feeling this burden. Certainly, a challenge requiring creative solutions.
- People with positive energy influence my day: colleagues, friends, family. Sometimes it is a simple Facebook post that inspires me to return the positive vibe.
Walter Sergio Lugari, BSN, RN, ATCN (Germany)
- Most problems in German emergency departments were linked to an aging work infrastructure that was under strain. It had problems to compensate for increasing instances of overcrowding, nursing shortages, short staffing and general work conditions.
- Emergency nursing was not a love-at-first try situation for me, -rather a slow but steady burn. And one of the main reasons that I feel inspired to be an emergency nurse is my team, a diverse, incredible group of professionals and people who always tries to put the patients and the team first.
Gunilla Lundgren, RN (Sweden)- The biggest challenge facing emergency nurses in my country is encouraging and helping younger emergency nurses develop in their profession and create a work environment that will make it possible for the emergency nurses to remain in the ED.
- I am so inspired to read about all the amazing emergency nurses around the globe who have the courage, determination, and big hearts for their patients and the nursing profession.
Adam Johnston, BA, RN, CEN (United States)
- The biggest challenge is the increasing rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, and other mental health problems among healthcare workers.
- I’m inspired by the other emergency nurses I’ve met through ENA. Despite facing all the same challenges and time constraints as every emergency nurse, those who are actively involved with ENA are working together to advocate for our profession, and make emergency nursing better for our patients and for our nurses.
Marc Marquez, RN (Australia)
- Our emergency department is currently facing staffing shortages and a recent spike of resignations by senior nursing staff. Due to the increased demand and access for emergency care in the recent months, staff has been feeling physically exhausted and we are seeing an increasing incidence of sick and personal leave each and every day.
- Providing care and support to the most vulnerable during a difficult time of their lives is what inspires me as an emergency nurse. The care that we provide in the initial phase of their hospital journey forms an important piece of their "recovery puzzle".
