Making the Paramedic-to-RN Transition: \"Trauma Junkie\"
Exclusive Interview: Confessions of a Trauma Junkie, My Life As A Nurse Paramedic author Sherry Jones Mayo, RN, EMTP, DNCCM
Have you been thinking about transitioning from paramedic to registered nurse? Read on to learn about the exceptional journey of former paramedic and self-dubbed "trauma junkie" Sherry Jones Mayo, RN, EMTP, DNCCM.
A seasoned pro who's worked as an EMT, EMTS, EMTP, RN and is currently an ER Trauma Nurse, Sherry has a unique perspective on emergency medicine. She's the author of a moving memoir titled Confessions of a Trauma Junkie: My Life as a Nurse Paramedic, an Approved Instructor for the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF), and a Diplomate with the National Center for Crisis Management.
Life on the Road
Like many health workers who grew up watching the popular 1970s series Emergency!, Sherry credits Roy and Johnny with inspiring her to follow in their footsteps. She loved the work, describing it as "the best job."
However, the lifestyle had its share of challenges: "Arriving on scene to find a car has flown 20 feet in the air in a rural area, throwing the occupants...one of them impaled on a tree. Working a resort area (with a police officer/specialist) that threw multiple near-drowning victims at us faster than we could respond, requiring us to 'code' down the wrong side of the street the 20 miles from the hospital back to the lake. Starting an IV on a seizing patient in his dark living room, with his daughter laying across his chest to hold him still....Waking up at 0300 to find myself sitting in the back of the ambulance giving a three year old a breathing treatment, not remembering how I got there."
As if dealing with one life-or-death situation after another weren't stressful enough already, the schedule of an EMT or paramedic is debilitating. Sherry worked consecutive 24 hour shifts and suffered from extreme lack of sleep.
According to Sherry, the financial compensation wasn't in line with the stress and demanding schedule. Working paramedics today can relate: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median hourly wages of EMTs and paramedics were $14.10 in May 2008, with the lowest 10 percent earning less than $9.08. The median wage of registered nurses is about twice as much.
Off to Nursing School
Nursing school seemed a logical next step. "Less hours and more money, a consistent shift, and giving my daughter the comfort of knowing mom was in a safe, dry, warm environment instead of on the dangerous road brought emotional comfort to both of us," Sherry says. Medical school could have been a possibility, but Sherry says that "writing orders and walking away wasn't as much fun as getting your hands dirty."
The decision to become an RN may have been sensible, but it carried its own set of challenges says Sherry. She made the transition "in a time when medics and nurses neither played nicely together nor got along well." Medics and nurses perceived each other "in a jaded light that didn't take into consideration their training, experience, proficiency, or responsibility."
Her experience with her first nursing job reflected the chasm between paramedics and nurses. "Staff RNs sat me down in the hospital cafeteria one day informing me that they didn't like medics, didn't want them transporting patients without an RN present, and because I was a medic, I didn't fit in. It wasn't long before I left that ER and went back on the road."
Fortunately, Sherry found more congenial work at a city trauma center, which she says appreciated "what a medic/RN could contribute to the ER mix."
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