I am starting to love wound care - am I nuts?

NursesRmofun, ASN, RN · May 11, 2015

We get a lots of folks coming in from home or having been cared for by exausted elderly spouses who have some pretty ugly wounds. I love every aspect of the treatment process, Cleaning, measuring, packing etc. Hppy

Haha Nah, you aren't nuts! But I think, '...The nastier the better'.., may not be something I could agree with! I do like woundcare though.

calivianya, BSN, RN · May 11, 2015

I'm right there with you - I love wounds. Love them, love them, love them... will go out of my way to help other nurses with theirs. They know I'm the person to go to if they need help with a dressing change. I just enjoy the critical patients too much to give them up to just deal with wounds. Maybe if I burn out on critical care, I will go into wound care...

Farawyn · May 11, 2015

Think of wound care, what a metaphor for life! You rip off the old and it hurts before it heals. If you don't peek under the dressings it may fester, new growth of skin, debridement- eventually it heals but the scar is always there, as a reminder.

Love it.

meanmaryjean, DNP, RN · May 11, 2015

You're not nuts. My daughter is a CWOCN and has found her calling.

Me? Not a fan - give me a complex cardiac defect in a newborn and I'm a happy camper. To each his own. But isn't that what's great about nursing? There's is truly something for everyone.

odaat · May 11, 2015

I absolutely love wounds too! When I take an old dressing off for the first time its a little like Christmas morning, so exciting to see what kind of nasty lies underneath! And then putting a nice new pretty dressing on top, love it! I also take a lot of joy in seeing the healing process and having that direct evidence of impact on a patients life and also in making patients feel at ease during the dressing change. I definitely see full time wound care somewhere in my future ðŸ˜

StrawberryEssence81 · May 11, 2015

I love wound care too. I'm a very new nurse (less than three months experience) and one of my goals is to be a CWOCN.

Cafelattee · May 12, 2015

I use to like to them as a newer nurse cause it felt like "real nursing" kwim. Once upon a time would care was debridement at the bedside with a machine that put air pressure betadine into the wound. I also worked a floor with all the patients having MRSA positive wounds. The MRSA was new not responding to any antibodies. I had a lot of the patients go septic. There were so many that smelled like death gangrene type wounds. My floor smelled like something from pre modern medicine hospital in 1994. THey also would stay in the hospital for a long time.

I work ER now so I don't know that much about long term wound care anymore but I still remember the smell of rotting flesh from all those years ago

Red Kryptonite · May 12, 2015

After cleaning, packing, and dressing a fairly gnarly dehisced abdominal incision during my clinicals, I can see the appeal. You're dealing calmly and professionally with stuff that would send most people screaming out of the room. It's also a very concrete kind of nursing, where progress/success or failure is very easily measured, and feedback is usually immediate and clear. The wound is infected, or not. The wound is healing, or not. The wound is either larger or smaller. There's almost no grey area and I can see that appealing to a lot of people.

BrandonLPN, LPN · May 12, 2015

One of the not-often-mentioned disadvantages of doing wound care all day is that it's incredibly hard on your back. Especially if you're doing it solo, without another staff member to assist. I'd say it's harder on the back, even, than being a CNA. Proper body mechanics and all that help, but with many wounds there's really no way to hold a patient's body part up to get at the wound that isn't awkward and involve twisting your back in unusual angles.

If there were facilities that staffed two wound nurses who could do the treatments together, I'd be all over that.

Been there,done that, ASN, RN · May 12, 2015

Far from nuts.. you have identified a special need that you are good at!

As a floor nurse, I especially appreciated the wound care nurse, and their care plan for my patient. I was far too busy to formulate the correct treatment plan.

FurBabyMom, MSN, RN · May 13, 2015

You're not nuts. It may not be everyone's preference but it needs done. And it takes all types to make the world go round. Someone has to love it and be great at it. It's not me. But I'm in the OR of a Level 1 trauma center - and that's not everyone's cup of tea. I used to do neuro stepdown - which also wasn't everyone's cup of tea. :) Congratulations!