How to become any Critical Care Registered nurse | HealthInfi

What is a Critical Care Nurse?

A critical care nurse, also sometimes referred to as an ICU nurse, is a type of nurse that provides care to patients that are in critical condition. These types of nurses may care for adults or children recovering from serious medical problems including illnesses and injuries. Some critical care nurses also work in wards or units that take care of patients only with specific medical problems, such as critical care burn units.

Critical care nurses are some of the most in demand nurses in this field. The long hours and stressful work environments often make this career extremely challenging and both physically and emotionally. It takes a very special type of person to be a successful critical care nurse.

Education and training are not the only requirements that you should have if you’re looking to become a critical care nurse. These types of nurses should have excellent communication skills as well as the ability to assess patients make decisions quickly.

As a career, critical care nursing can also be very emotionally draining and heart wrenching. Critical care nurses are often faced with the harsh reality of losing patients every now and again, despite their best efforts. If you’re looking into a career in this nursing specialty, you should be able to deal with loss in a fairly quick and healthy manner.

What do Critical Care Nurses Do?

In order to be a critical care nurse, you have to be a registered nurse (RN). You will look after patients of any age who are acutely ill. This means you will get to work in critical care settings, such as burn centers, accident and emergency rooms and intensive care. To work in this field, you must be prepared to spend long hours on your feet and it is not uncommon for nurses to develop back problems because of this and due to the fact that they have to move and lift patients.

The biggest challenge, however, is that you will have to work with patients who are critically ill. This means you have to have a strong disposition and be able to detach yourself emotionally to some degree. It could be said that critical care nurses have the same basic duties and responsibilities as both traditional staff nurses and emergency nurses. They provide much of the basic care for critical patients, and assist physicians and specialists with monitoring and treating these patients.

As a critical care nurse, you will be responsible for monitoring your critical patients. Since these patients are often literally on the edge, you may be required to take and record data such as vital signs and blood oxygen levels several times each hour. This is typically accomplished with a variety of bedside monitoring equipment, including bedside monitors and hand-held vital sign monitoring equipment.Read More