Are you looking for information about critical care nursing specialties? We know what brought you here. If you are a critical care nurse in the UK, then you have a bunch of opportunities. Around 282 Critical Care units exist in Northern Ireland, England, and Wales alone as per a 2020 survey.
Having talked about the nursing skills in our previous blogs, as critical care nurses, we thought you should also learn about critical care nursing specialties nurses in this section, which is what this blog is all about. We have also made references to the kind of equipment you should handle and the expertise you need to master to become a successful one in your career.
What are the duties of a critical care nurse or a critical care nurse?
Critical care nurses often work in a breakneck environment, where they are required to be on their toes to support surgeons during emergencies. They are put to handle many crucial responsibilities to offer care and ensure the healthcare runs smoothly. Some of the roles of a critical care nurse include;
- Diagnose and offering prescription medications to patients
- Handle medical tools and machinery
- Constantly monitoring patients’ progress
- Measure vitals like heart rate
- Offer comfort to patients and their families
- Undertake paperwork pertaining to patients
- Help curate care plan for patients
- Offer lab assistance to patients
- Proactively react and respond to emergencies
What are the major critical care nursing specialties?
Of the many areas of focus, the critical care nurses’ focus is captured in the below picture.
Based on the services they offer, their specialties differ too. Here are some of them.
Neurological critical care nurse
This category of nurses is required to work with patients with spinal cord injury and/or traumatic brain injury. critical care nurses in this specialty should offer constant neurological assessments, offer medications, handle intracranial devices, and possess wide knowledge about spinal cord and brain injuries.
Cardiac critical care nurse
This specialty involves nurses being proficient in cardiac surgery or cardiac catheterization procedures. They will be put to perform duties like consistent hemodynamic and telemetry monitoring, use of medications to maintain heart rate, BP, and handling devices like Swan-Ganz catheters and intra-aortic balloon pumps.
Medical critical care nurse
This involves nurses’ expertise in handling patients with sepsis, stroke, pneumonia, gastrointestinal bleeding, myocardial infarction, or similar complications. They need to be an expert in hemodynamic monitoring, using ventilators and hypothermia equipment, and offering fluids.
Trauma critical care nurse
Nurses in this specialty assist patients with injuries due to accidents like vehicle crashes, attempted suicide, drowning, etc. Trauma critical care nurses should be able to perform quick assessment and detection of complications should be skilled in spine, brain, chest, orthopedic injuries.
Burn critical care nurse
The critical care nurse under this expertise should be able to evaluate, treat, and manage wounds, maintain perfusion, treat sepsis, and should have known pain management.
Transplant critical care nurse
This nurse admits patients who have had organ transplants like kidney, cornea, liver, or heart. The transplant critical care nurses are responsible for preserving hemodynamic stability, observing organ rejection carefully, and handling equipment like ventilators and chest tubes.
Pediatric critical care nurse
Very sensitive of all other kinds, the pediatric critical care nurses need to be experts at congenital diseases, monitoring of respiratory status, and hemodynamics, among others.
Neonatal critical care nurse
In order to handle infants with injuries or serious diseases, neonatal critical care nurses should be able to perform trauma care, have knowledge about diseases that affect newborns, and about congenital illnesses.
Whatever kind of critical care nurse you be, at JP Medicals Recruitment we have temporary jobs of all kinds with attractive pay and competitive benefits. We are the fastest growing NHU registered agency in the UK and a most preferred supplier in providing temporary recruitment solutions to nurses and other healthcare workers. For further queries contact JP Medicals Recruitment now!
