To me, this is a lot of red flags: Auditory hallucinations... a friend who committed suicide... suicidal thoughts... and a therapist (who presumably knows her?) concerned enough to refer to the ER. I'll ditto what others said... her health (life!!) is the #1 priority! She needs a full physical and psychiatric work-up... leading to a proper diagnosis so she can get the right treatment, whatever that is. .
In-patient care may indeed be the best way to accomplish that and it would also help ensure her safety while that was happening (she'd be on "suicide watch" with people regularly looking into the room, she'd have no access to sharp objects, etc.).
As for career options, honestly... you're talking about her very LIFE...under the circumstance, career is so far down the list of priorities, it's a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.
Edit: 2 things...
1) if she's still at home right now while they're making this decision, they should do their own "suicide watch" at home and take some simple precautions (like asking her to keep her bedroom door open, disabling the lock on her bedroom door for quick access, and having someone else in the house 24x7, etc.. - better safe than sorry).
2) they should ask the hospital if they have a pediatric/adolescent psych unit. And if the answer is "no", they might want to ask which hospitals in their region DO have that... it might be an affiliated children's hospital. My parents both worked in the mental health field - I visited them at work (on rare occasions) as a kid and I can tell you... it could be VERY scary for a 16-year-old girl to be on a unit mixed with adults... especially if she were to see a large male patient "act out" and get taken down by the aides, for instance (which does happen on occasion). No sense scaring the living daylights out of the girl while she's already feeling vulnerable! Might as well ask that quick question! It needn't delay admission to find the right place. And if she feels more comfortable wherever she's admitted, the experience will be better and there'll likely be less resentment on her part, too.
SENDING GOOD KARMA to your friends and their daughter!