Sanity check. EN in ED wanting to stay on as RN, NUM said no.
TL;DR: EN in ED, two years in by the time I graduate as RN end of 2026. NUM won’t support an EN-to-RN transition in ED without a grad program and wants me to do one on a ward elsewhere first. I’d rather stay in ED and carry on progressing. Am I being one-sided here?
Hey, looking for a bit of advice on how to approach something with my NUM.
For context, I’m a grad EN in a metro ED (permanent 0.8 FTE), started March 2025, and graduate as an RN end of this year. I’m also currently completing a 6-month emergency nursing course run by the ED educators that provides a deepened understanding of the foundations of emergency practice. By the time I graduate I’ll have nearly two years experience as an EN in the department.
Met with my NUM yesterday to get ahead and ask about the process of staying on as an RN after I graduate. She said she doesn’t really support EN to RN transitions in ED and has turned others down on it before, because she doesn’t think she can give that transition the support it needs. She’s suggesting I do another grad year somewhere else (we don’t get to choose where, so most likely a ward) and possibly come back to ED later. She thinks this will give me a good experience and mentioned I’d probably be able to come back at least on a fixed-term basis if I can show how what I learned elsewhere applies here.
To be honest, I’m quite disappointed and don’t fully understand. In practice I do the same job as the RNs around me. The “supervised by an RN” wording from AHPRA doesn’t really reflect how it works on the floor (in ED, at least. I understand this may be very different elsewhere). I’m already a qualified nurse with my own legal and professional accountability. I’m not a student, and I’m not being “delegated” to. The actual scope changes for me would be very small things such as being able to nurse initiate medications, monitor blood product infusions for the first 15 minutes, and sign out S4Ds/S8s with either an EN or an RN rather than always having to do it with an RN. Honestly, most of what I actually know about nursing has come from the floor and the course run by the educators, not the degree.
I also think people seem to overestimate the differences between EN and RN, and I feel like I’m going crazy for seeing it differently. I don’t get why this “transition” apparently needs so much support.
My original plan was to stay in ED as an RN, do a post grad, move into resus and triage, and eventually go for NP. A grad year somewhere else would likely mean covering a lot of ground I’ve already covered, then re-orienting back to a department I already know. I was also hoping to get as much ED experience as an RN as I can in case I move states in the near future (I want to be employable in major EDs), and a ward grad year doesn’t necessarily help with that.
The other thing I genuinely can’t understand is that the department is actively employing nurses from elsewhere right now because they’re short on staff. It’s hard to understand why you’d push someone out who you’ve already put all this training into.
In saying this, I can see her side. A one-off transition is more work than slotting someone into a structured intake, and a grad year probably does give a more even foundation than what I’m proposing. I’d just rather not lose a year of ED-specific experience to get there, especially when I’ve only just finished a grad year.
I’m planning to email her and explain my thought process (obviously in a more professional and civil way). Before I do that, am I being one-sided? Is there something obvious about a grad year that I’m underweighting?
ADD-ON: not that it makes much difference, but I currently work 12 hour shifts and moving anywhere else in the hospital would mean only having the option to do 8 hour shifts. This may seem little but I’m really stressed about losing this quality of life aspect