The Challenging Career Of An Intensive Care Nurse
The areas of nursing have expanded and become widely diversified in the past decade. Now there are various career paths and options from which an aspiring nurse can choose. Critical Care, or Intensive Care Nursing, is one of these highly challenging and rewarding areas of specialization.
Intensive Care nursing, or Critical Care nursing, is the area of nursing which focuses on caring for unstable or critically ill patients who are in serious, life threatening situations. Intensive Care nurses take care of the sickest patients in a hospital. The work station is in the specialized areas of the ICUs (Intensive care units), CCUs (Critical care units), or emergency departments.
Critical and Intensive Care nursing is an invaluable tool for enhancing the quality of care in dealing with critically ill patients. These specialist nurses work hand-in-hand with their professional colleagues.
LPN/LVN's (Licensed Practical nurses or Licensed Vocational nurses) are usually not utilized for giving direct care in the intensive care unit because of the patient's unstable condition. In the United States, only Registered Nurses work in the intensive care units of hospitals. In the United States, an advisory board named the American Association of Critical Care Nurses defines and maintains the standards for critical care nursing. Nurses wanting to obtain certificates in Critical Care nursing acquire them from this particular advisory board. The CCRN certificate is the specialty certification to work in critical care. Employers encourage their employee nurses to acquire these certifications, although it is not mandatory to do so for working in intensive care units. These certifications are valued because of the tough tests, wide knowledge of pathophysiology, critical care, and medical/nursing practices required to obtain them. These certificates are recognized as proof of the individual nurse's expertise in the area of critical care nursing as well as showing her willingness to increase her knowledge base and skills. All of these aspects will allow her to provide better care to the patients. Intensive care nurses have to learn to be comfortable with the use of many types of advanced equipment and technology in the critical care unit. These include equipment like heart monitoring systems, mechanical ventilators, ventricular assist devices, continuous renal replacement equipment, mechanical oxygenation circuits and other critical life support devices. The nurses are trained in using this equipment through in-hospital programs, by the manufacturers, and by spending long hours of training with more experienced operators. Most employers require continuing education on the part of the nurses, so that their skills are updated at all times. Intensive care management teams often send their staff to conferences so that they are kept up-to-date with the current fast changing technology. The Intensive/Critical Care nurse may work in different areas with different types of patients. Besides working in the intensive care units, they may also work in the post operative or the high dependency units in hospitals as well as in disaster areas where medical evacuation is taking place or with transport teams. Critical care nursing also has sub specialties. Among them are Neonatal Intensive Care, Pediatric Intensive care and Adult Intensive Care. The placement of patients in these separate units is usually based on their age group.
| 