By James Coburn, staff writer
One thing that makes an emergency nursing career “cool” is being able to make changes in the moment, said Holly Emegano, RN, Oklahoma ER & Hospital. Today, she loves being a nurse for the simple fact of meeting people. She’s a talker.
“Every day is awesome. Every day I have a story of something that happened that’s cool,” Emegano said.
The Oklahoma City hospital has been the pinnacle of attracting nurses, she added.
“Everybody wants to come work here. I don’t know if it’s because it’s smaller and it’s just more one-on-one with patients,” Emegano said.
A friend working there told her about an opening at Oklahoma ER & Hospital. She interviewed and was hired in 2023.
“It was amazing. The second I walked in it felt like home, and I thought this is where I want to be,” she said. “It’s kind of like a dream come true in the nursing world. I’ve been through 11 different hospitals through travel nursing, and it is phenomenal.”
At Oklahoma ER & Hospital, Emegano has seen a gamut of patients enter with snake bites, injury from motor vehicle collisions, broken bones, and gunshot wounds. Listening to patients is a priority for easing fears. She explains the immediate aspects of the ER team’s medical response. She lets them know they’re understood.
“I like to sit next to them — somebody just taking the time to be with them as well,” she continued.
The staff uses the same cutting-edge equipment and technology, including bedside ultrasound, digital radiology, CT scan, MRI, and a comprehensive clinical laboratory. They treat and diagnose quickly with 85 percent of lab work done at the facility.
Resilience is the No. 1 word she uses to describe Oklahoma ER & Hospital’s nursing staff. The second they walk through the door, their focus changes from their own daily challenges to patient centered care.
“It is that patient at that time. It is their worst day. They put them first and it’s really cool to work with a whole team of people that are all battling different things. And then to watch them, their resilience in their job to make sure they’re giving their best to that patient when there’s crisis,” she said.
She would learn about a brewing global crisis soon after completing the Associate of Nursing degree program at Oklahoma State University–Oklahoma City. Right before the COVID-19 hit, she began her career at INTEGRIS Southwest Medical Center.
“I was an emergency nurse but then the world shut down,” she said. “And I had to completely change how to take care of COVID patients and that’s the only patients we had. I knew going into the ER I would see death, but I didn’t know I would see that to that extreme.”
COVID was scary for Emegano, but she also learned a lot. Her critical thinking accelerated quickly. The hardest part for Emegano was maintaining the separation of family members from entering the ER.
“I could have gotten into big trouble. We weren’t supposed to use our phones or anything, and this patient was actively dying, and they wanted to say bye,” Emegano continued. “So, I got my cell phone and face-timed with them. The hospital wasn’t mad at me. They knew these were unprecedented times and we didn’t know what to do.”
A couple of months later, the patient’ family members came by INTEGRIS, sought Emegano out to thank her for her kindness during the passing of their loved one.
She understands grief. Emegano’s best friend died in a car crash at the age of 19. Years later, her friend’s mother came to her and said she would not have endured the experience without the nurses in the ER helping her through that.
“That’s the one thing she remembered — the nurses,” Emegano said. “I obviously became a nurse later in life. So, that’s one of my driving factors. Every time I’m in the ER I remember that.”
Emegano is also a sexual assault forensic nurse examiner for YWCA. She has been taught not to become too personal with victims of a traumatic incident. But sometimes, there are those times when she feels there is that need to make a victim feel comfortable after what might be the hardest experience of a lifetime.
“I’m able to take those trauma-informed moments to both jobs and it’s really awesome,” she said.
She tells others interested in becoming an ER nurse the importance of trusting themselves. Emegano has friends who have said they don’t know how she endures the ER. Strength comes from the heart and trusting yourself, Emegano said.
She doesn’t have a lot of leisure time now that she’s studying to become a nurse practitioner with a certificate in forensics at the University of South Alabama. But she and her husband, a soccer coach, enjoy their three dogs.
“I like to read. I’m a true crime junkie, so true crime documentaries are my thing. I love Disney. I’m a Disney adult,” she said.
