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| *Ostroff, Fair and Company>>>Health Care |
What do nurses DO? |
yah i know they give people shots and help elderly but isnt there other things they do as well? and diff types such as clinical, hospital and traveling? i want to know more about nursing because it may be an option i will pursue as a job when i graduate. and what about schooling, how much college do you need? any idea what the salary is for a nurse? So many questions, so little space. To make it brief, what nurses do depends a lot on what setting is their workplace. In all settings they perform some kind of documentation. But what they do includes: physically assessing patients/customers, interviewing or obtaining health histories, interventions (including medications, starting IVs, giving various treatments, dressing changes, etc. etc.), creating a plan of care, supervising other people. Different settings include hospital work, doctor's offices, home health, hospice care, health clinics, education, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals. It is very broad. You couldn't ask a harder question if you asked what managers do. Your best bet for finding out more is to go to a college with a nursing program and talking to one of their advisers. They can find out what your interests are and give you better advice from there. Source(s): I'm a Registered Nurse with a 4-year degree. My mom is an RN in a bone marrow transplant unit for a major medical and research center in Virginia. One time I asked her one time what a day may be like. This is what I remember: She comes in during the shift change and finds out the patients she's assigned to (it should only be 4, but sometimes she gets 6-7 patients). She'll consult with the nurse(s) she's picking up from to find out about the patients' conditions or any special requirements. Once she takes over the patients, she'll do an assessment of each, which means she'll check vital signs (pulse, temperature, etc.), see if they're in pain, and look for symptoms of something else going on (fever, infection, bleeding). If necessary, she'll consult with a doctor for further orders. After this, she'll rotate in between the patients and assist with any procedures (inserting catheters, drawing blood for workup). But when she does not have to do that, she fills out the medical charts, check the paperwork for accuracy and completion, and dispense medication when needed. Also, Mom will give sponge baths to some of the patients who are not able to get up. Quite often she'll walk some the patients around the floor so they can get some exercise. Then, as her shift comes to a close, the next nurse will come in and consult with my mom on the patients. I hope that helps. But the best thing to get a preview of life as a nurse is to ask a real nurse. Also, I'd recommend volunteering as a candystripe at a hospital so you can experience working with patients and their families. Nursing is not for everyone. It's demanding and may require long hours. But it can be very rewarding. Shoot, my mom works three 12 hour shifts a week, gets paid for 40, and makes over $55,000 a year. Best wishes! Well actually clinicals are what you do while earniong your degree. You go around to diff hopsitals and are in diff areas like, OB/GYN, Geriatric, Intensive Care, ER....etc. It's your rounds so you get experience....like and internship, you know were you don't get paid. The first step is recieving your associates which is your pre-reqisites and then 2 more years of school. But the first to are like math and such and then you have two years of actual n"nursuing" school. Were I'm from nurses starting out make 30 and hour. But its not the money you need to think about, its wether you like the job or not. I mean its very hard work, wether people think it or not. Nurses are still humans and they have to lose there feelings when at work, which is sometimes really hard. You have the good and he bad, patients die, new babies are born, you have to tell families the good and the bad news. Most hospitals the doctors are never around, its just you and the patient for the most part of the day. Maybe volunteer at a local hospital to get a feel for what a nurse goes through. Hope I helped!! :) OK, I think the easiest way to answer this question is to give you an example of a typical day for me, as a RN. Get in to work at 7am and spend 30 minutes receiving a hand over from the night nurses, telling me all about my patients for the day. At 7.30 I will go out onto the ward and do a quick check through the ward, introducing myself to each patient and quickly scanning through their nursing notes to get an idea of their needs. I will then organise my nursing assistant and instruct her on my inital needs, for example, blood pressure checks, temperature, pulse and blood sugar checking. At 8am I will do my first drugs round of the day. Then I will prepare patients that are on the theatre list for their operations. This involves checking paperwork, ensuring they have not eaten and drunk, checking medications etc. As the morning goes on I may have to change dressings, check wounds, give injections, pain relief, use equipment to give medications, liaise with occupational therapist, dieticians, physiotherapists, social workers. I will do ward rounds with doctors and consultants. I will help wash, feed and dress patients. I will help them mobilise. I will prepare patients for discharge, making sure they have medications, advice for leaving hospital and set up packages of care for home. I will take out stitches and clips. I will take catheters out and put them in. I will look after drains, ng tubes and other attachments. I will give people counselling and help families cope with the loss of loved ones. I will prepare deceased patients for the mortuary. I will do mountains of paperwork and computer input. I do telephone advice. I care for emergencies that come on the ward. At lunchtime there is another ward round to do. Then there will be patients coming back from theatre who need close supervision and a lot of care. At 6pm there is yet another ward round. I will do urine and pregnancy testing, order drugs and stock up on supplies. At 7pm I hand over my patients to the night nurses and at 7.30pm I can go home. I will have had 2 x 15 minute coffee breaks and half an hour for lunch and apart from that I will not have sat down! As well as hospital nurses there are many different jobs that a qualified nurse can aim for, school nurse, occupational health nurse, specialist nurse, district or community nurse....... to name but a few. And of course, within hospitals you can have childrens nurses, adult nurses, surgical, medical, orthopaedic, geronotology, out patients, recovery, theatre scrub, anaesthetic, mental health, oncology..... for every medical and surgical speciality there are specific nurses. I'm in UK, so I only know about our requirement ref. college and salary, 3-4 years college dependent on whether you go for diploma or degree and expect to start on salary of about 拢18,500. |
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