by
Karen Crone, RN
Once
a nurse completes his or her training and gains
licensure, the options for clinical practice are
endless. With the rapid advancement of technology,
new arenas are opening for nurse’s everyday.
Some are considered traditional clinical roles,
while others are more recent and less renowned.
Traditional
Clinical Specialties:
·
Medical/Surgical Nursing
- originally referred to as “floor nursing”,
this setting is for patients requiring a less
acute level of care. With the explosion of homecare,
patient acuity levels are more severe in med-surg
than before as patients are being discharged from
hospitals to homecare follow up.
·
Critical Care Nursing – there are all kinds
of critical care units – cardiac, neuro,
trauma, neonatal, transplant, burn and emergency
and surgical recovery.
Obstetrics –
this encompasses labor and delivery, post partum,
and recovery. Nurses can also become mid wives
and deliver babies in traditional and non traditional
settings.
Surgery –
nurses must take some form of training course
to learn to work in the operating room. They may
perform as a “scrub” or a “circulating
nurse”. The scrub nurse assists the surgeons
at the table side, while the circulating nurse
takes care of the patient, administers meds, retrieves
and provides instruments and does administrative
work. There are thousands of instruments, suture
and machinery that the surgical nurse needs to
familiar with.
Non
Traditional Specialties:
·
Nurse Practitioner (NP)
– Similar
in scope to a physicians assistant, a nurse practitioner
can diagnose and treat patients including writing
prescriptions. A nurse practitioner requires advanced
academics and upon licensure, works under the
supervision and guidance of a physician. NPs may
choose to work in sub specialties such as pediatric,
orthopedics, neurology, etc.
Cardiac Cath Lab
– trained in cardiac
care, this specialty works alongside the cardiac
doctors to test and diagnose the cardiac function
of the patients.
Air Flight Nurses
– These nurses accompany
patients on flights to other medical facilities
such as an infant being transported to a hospital
with a higher level intensive nursery unit.
Travel Nurses –
Also called “contract nursing”, these
nurses, of all clinical specialties travel from
one area to another on 3 – 6 month contract
assignments. Many choose to do this after raising
a family. Others like to go to ski towns in the
winter and beach towns in the summer. This is
a very lucrative and interesting way to see the
world. Contracts are available throughout the
United States, and internationally.
Hospice Nurses –
Hospice care can be offered in the patients home,
on a designated hospice unit in the hospital or
in an “off campus” hospice setting.
The nurses are trained in palliative care and
grief assistance training.
Homecare Nursing
– RNs go to the patient’s
home, provide physical assessments, medications,
treatments and act as a conduit between the patient
and the doctor.
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