can an LPN become a wound nurse

Specialties Wound

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ive been an LPN for 4 years, can I specialize in wound care? if so where do I start?

Specializes in WCC.

I have 3 LPN wound care nurses working in the wound care department that I supervised. They were not certified and the company was hesitant to have them certified because of their degrees. The reason they fell into wound care is because the hospital doesn't like to hire LPNs for the floor.

Kindred Healthcare based in Louisville KY has facilities all over the country which greatly hires LPNs. I have worked at 4 different Kindred facilities and each has hired LPNs. One facility had an LPN as a Clinical Manager in fact, overseen by the DON. In our wound care dept, we just make sure an LPN does measurements at least every other week.

If I were you, I would see how I could position myself to fall into being needed for a wound care position as the certification is expensive.

Some certifications require an RN like CWOCN (certified wound, ostomy, continence nurse) but there are plenty of others that LPNs can obtain, such as DWC (diabetic wound certified) or WCC (wound care certified) and if you're into ostomies there is OMS (ostomy management specialist). I'm sure there are others but those are the ones I have some information about.

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