Jennifer Buettner never planned to be an author.

  Nearly 15 years ago she was working in her chosen profession as an emergency nurse when she began helping a coworker who had just graduated and was starting out. So she started writing some things down.

  “When you come to the emergency department, you are kind of learning on the job. It is very different from other types of nursing, and you really don’t get any specialized training or experience for it in nursing school,” said Buettner. “I wanted to put something together to guide her orientation a little bit.”

  What started out as a pamphlet eventually became more than 300 pages. “Fast Facts for the ER Nurse” is now going into its fourth edition, which should be out in a few months. Previous versions are available now on Amazon.

  “It really was just to help a friend,” she said. “I didn’t expect to write a book; it just turned into one.”

  After a little over two decades in nursing, Buettner is now an ER nurse educator in the Emory health care system. She lives in McDonough.

  There are numerous outlets for working nurses, from schools and doctor’s offices to various sections of a typical hospital. Working in an emergency department is very different from anything else.

  “You are kind of a jack-of-all-trades when you work in an emergency setting,” said Buettner. “We have to learn everything from delivering babies to taking care of the very old and everyone in between. Orthopedics, heart attack, stroke, all of it. That sounds daunting but it is appealing to some people.”

  What many people know about an actual emergency room is limited to a favorite television series or motion picture. Some even have that in mind when entering the nursing profession, Buettner acknowledged.

  “It is dramatized on TV and it sounds really amazing,” she said. “We get a lot of younger nurses who think it is exciting and can’t wait to be in the emergency room. When you get there it is exciting at first, but you also realize that it is very hard. We help them navigate through that so they will be successful.”

  An entire chapter of “Fast Facts for the ER Nurse” is devoted to what she called “survival tips” in emergency nursing. One thing she emphasizes in her educational endeavors is that nurses take care of themselves first.

  “It is such a taxing job – emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally,” she said. “They have to make sure they are taking the time to schedule a routine through which they can take care of themselves in all of those facets. You can’t really take care of others if you’re not taking care of yourself.”

  Buettner is working on a new book that has taken her in a totally different direction. The title is “When A Nurse Prays.” She said it is still a how-to book of sorts, but with an obvious spiritual emphasis.

    The topic of prayer, of which she admittedly had little experience at the start, came up during a 2016 mission trip to South America. She asked an elder on the trip some questions, and out of their discussions came his encouragement to her that she write about her journey. She thought it was a good idea but set it aside because she had no time due to her work and family commitments.

  Months later she was working in an ER where an 18-year-old girl was in full cardiac arrest. The medical staff had worked on her for an hour with no signs of recovery, and the chance of the patient coming back became less likely.

  Buettner spotted the girl’s mother. Wanting to do anything she could that might help, she asked the woman if they could pray together, and she agreed. Another family member joined them later.

  “I was expecting the doctor at any time to call it and announce the time of death,” said Buettner. “But then they found a pulse.”

  Despite what one might see on a TV show, this kind of thing almost never happens. Those who had just been asking for a miracle realized that they had received one.

  “Everyone’s faith in that room was suddenly restored,” said Buettner, who from that point began thinking about other situations she had witnessed in which prayer made a difference – “when God showed up,” as she put it.

  She continues working on that book, which will be finished some time after the latest edition of her previous one. Regardless of how it is received by others, the process of writing it has been a special experience.

  “It has been an amazing growth journey for me.”