Critical Care Nurse

Patients in critical condition are often deemed to be unstable, often unconscious, with erratic or extremely unhealthy vital signs. Many of these patients could also possibly be close to death. Because of this, the care that critical patients receive should be top-notch and highly specialized.

Although physicians and specialists attend to the primary needs and treatments of patients in critical condition, it is often the critical care nurses that attend to these patients’ daily needs.

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?

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.

Any change – good or bad – in your patients’ conditions should promptly be reported to their primary care physicians or your charge nurse, so their treatments can be adjusted according to their progression or decline. You may be called upon to assess patients quickly, particularly if they are not responding favorably to a certain treatment, and possibly adjust their treatment options yourself. Should the worst happen, you should also be skilled in a number of life saving techniques, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and know how to use life saving equipment, such as defibrillators.

Communication with patients’ loved ones is another important aspect of the job. Critical care nurses are frequently the people that most loved ones communicate during these difficult times. you should be prepared to explain medical procedures and treatments, update loved ones on patients’ conditions, and at times even inform them of the worst.