Where you work, who takes care of wound care? I just did a clinical shift and the physical therapists did it as they didn't employ wound nurses.

Also, where you work, who drains a patient's abscess?

Physical therapist? Really? Never knew that was in their job description. Both the hospitals I have worked at had a Wound Care Nurse. And if they weren't available then the nurses did their own wound care.

I asked if that was a normal part of being a PT and she said it wasn't. Do the wound nurses at your work I&D abscesses?

I&D's are physician's realm (usually residents)...we have a wound care nurse that sees pt's daily and changes wound vac's and limited dressings. Nurses usually do the daily or BID dressing changes unless the docs want to do them (some are picky),

Wound & Ostomy Care Team evaluates wounds & writes out orders to be carried out by the staff nurse. I would question PT doing wound care; not in their training, if you ask me.

nurses do all the wound care. wound doctor comes on friday to evaluate and write orders.

We do our own dressings including wound vacs. Abcess draining is done my the MD.

We have a wound care nurse who assesses any wounds found by RN's, and writes orders for dressing changes or anything not requiring a wound vac or I&D

Podiatry, obviously, does most of their podiatry dressing changes themselves

Wound vac changes are done by residents, usually the surgery residents

I&D are usually done by surgery as well

Staff nurses do wound care, including wound vacs, unless we have specific instructions that surgery will come change the dressing. We consult the wound care nurse to get orders or recommendations, but they don't routinely do wound care except in extenuating circumstances. It is definitely not something PT would do. Although, we do have a PT I've seen brought in specifically to do wrapping for lymphedema, which is something I wouldn't have thought was their job either.

Either the surgery team or the bedside RN does the wound care, at the discretion of the surgery team. I have done it myself in the case of a female w/ groin nec fasc (she was going to the OR for I&Ds q day and HBO BID), when her entire packing got contaminated w/ stool. Our WOCN RNs evaluate wounds and high-risk pts and make rec's, but there are only two of them for our entire 450some-bed hospital. It would be impossible for them to do any of the cares.

The last place I worked at (a 60-bed LTACH), the WOCNs had a list of pts to see each day, usually 10-12 pts. They did wound care on their listed pts. Otherwise, the bedside RN got to do it. It made time management extremely difficult because some of these people were wheelchair bound with four stage IV pressure ulcers, each wound-vac'ed. Wound vacs were changed 3x/week...not sure that that was necessary, but it was our policy. Or it could be someone w/ 30-40% TBSA burns. Wound care on one person could take two hours!

Draining an abcess is always done by a physician. It requires cutting into the patient.

I've seen PT's apply lymphedema wraps, but never wound care. I wouldn't be comfortable with that. We don't learn to practice PT while in nursing school, and I'm not sure that they learn wound care in PT school.

Wound care is provided by physical therapy or nurses depending on physicians orders. We have a team of physical therapist that specialize in advanced wound care using enzymes, honey, wound vacs, moist wound healing, they pack wounds. I love these guys they are very knowledgeable and I will ask the dr if they can be called if I think that it would benefit the patient. Plus if they are doing the wound care that is one less thing I have to do especially since some of the treatments can take a considerable amount if time. They let me know when the wound is all undress so that I can come see it as they know that I like to assess my patients wounds.

At my prior hospital, PT did it. At my current hospital, either the nurse or The Wound/Ostomy nurses do it.

I've seen PT do it in an outpatient setting. I believe that PTs are trained in at least basic wound care in school. After I had knee surgery previously it was PT that did the regular dressing changes. This facility treated patients who had venous stasis ulcers as a result of DM, and concurrent lymphedema. They would put them in a sterilized whirlpool bath, clean the wounds, put any prescribed ointments/wet-dry, etc on and then dress and or wrap them. Sometimes this process took the PT an extended period of time.