Emergency Department RN
Posted Sep 11, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 2026
Likely interview questions for this role
Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.
About your past
Tell me about a time you had a patient decompensate quickly and you had to call for help while starting interventions yourself.
What they are checking: comfort with rapid clinical deterioration and whether they can act and escalate at the same time without freezing
Tell me about a time a patient or family member became verbally aggressive or a behavioral health patient became escalated. What did you do?
What they are checking: de-escalation skill and personal composure in a department that routinely handles behavioral health crises
Tell me about a shift where you disagreed with a physician's plan for a patient. What did you do?
What they are checking: whether they advocate for patients appropriately without being either passive or combative with providers
Tell me about a time you had to hand off a complicated patient to the next shift. What made that handoff go well, or not well?
What they are checking: communication discipline during transitions of care, a known risk point for errors in emergency settings
What would you do
Walk me through how you triage a waiting room when you've got a chest pain patient, a kid with a fever, and a psych hold all checking in within the same ten minutes.
What they are checking: whether the candidate can prioritize using acuity rather than arrival order and manage competing demands safely
Say you're covering four patients and one new admission comes in as a possible stroke alert. Walk me through what you do in the first fifteen minutes.
What they are checking: knowledge of stroke protocol time targets and ability to reprioritize the rest of the assignment
A patient comes in with an ambiguous story that could be trauma, could be a medical event, could be a behavioral health crisis. How do you start sorting that out?
What they are checking: clinical reasoning and history-taking skill when the presentation doesn't fit a clean category
You're working a 3 PM to 3:30 AM shift and it's hour ten with the department still slammed. How do you keep your judgment sharp when you're that tired?
What they are checking: self-awareness about fatigue and safety, plus realistic strategies rather than bravado
About the work
This ED sees both pediatric and adult trauma. What's different about how you assess and reassess a pediatric patient compared to an adult, especially with vital sign changes?
What they are checking: actual pediatric assessment knowledge versus just familiarity with adult protocols
You mentioned this unit is a certified geriatric ED. What do you watch for differently when an elderly patient comes in after a fall compared to a younger adult?
What they are checking: awareness of geriatric-specific risks like polypharmacy, delirium, and atypical presentation of serious illness
What's your experience with ACLS, PALS, and TNCC, and if you don't have all three yet, how do you typically approach picking up a new certification quickly?
What they are checking: honest gap assessment and how they handle required credentialing while working full patient loads
How do you keep track of reassessment timing and documentation when you've got four or five patients and things keep interrupting you?
What they are checking: organizational systems for a high-interruption environment, not just theoretical knowledge of charting requirements
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As published by Advocate Health.