Critical Care Nurses
- Bright Outlook
- Rapid Growth
- Numerous Job Openings
Provide specialized nursing care for patients in critical or coronary care units.
What you’d do
- Evaluate patients' vital signs or laboratory data to determine emergency intervention needs.
- Monitor patients for changes in status and indications of conditions such as sepsis or shock and institute appropriate interventions.
- Administer medications intravenously, by injection, orally, through gastric tubes, or by other methods.
- Monitor patients' fluid intake and output to detect emerging problems, such as fluid and electrolyte imbalances.
- Prioritize nursing care for assigned critically ill patients, based on assessment data or identified needs.
- Compile and analyze data obtained from monitoring or diagnostic tests.
- Conduct pulmonary assessments to identify abnormal respiratory patterns or breathing sounds that indicate problems.
- Assess patients' pain levels or sedation requirements.
Skills that matter
- Monitoring
- Active Listening
- Critical Thinking
- Reading Comprehension
- Service Orientation
- Social Perceptiveness
How to get there
Considerable preparation: most need a four-year bachelor's degree
Also called
- Critical Care Nurse Practitioner
- Critical Care Registered Nurse (CCRN)
- ICU Nurse (Intensive Care Unit Nurse)
- Staff Nurse
- Certified Critical Care Nurse
- ICU Critical Care NP (Intensive Care Unit Critical Care Nurse Practitioner)
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