advice for becoming an infectious control nurse

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Hi all!

I am a student nurse and am interested in infectious control nursing. What steps need to be taken to get a position like this? Do you need certain degrees other than a BSN? Any feedback would be great.

Thank you

H

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I too am interested in finding out more, so I will bump this to the top. :)

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Over 600 views and no responses. :confused:

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Specializes in Critical Care, Cardiothoracics, VADs.

You generally need to be practising in the field to get certification by the professional assocations (APIC etc). If you had qualifications etc in public health/epidemiology etc it would be greatly advantageous, but it's not required. People tend to stay in these jobs for ever, so it's quite difficult to get into. APIC | Home

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Over 600 views and no responses. :confused:

I know there are Master speciality areas focused on infectious dieases. There are infectious diease clinical nurse specialist and infectious diease nurse pracititioner programs, which means you have to get a master's in nursing.

Or you can work as a nurse in public health dept. in your local county. I know my area has public health nurses focused on infectious dieases such as STDs in a community health clinic.

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Hi, everybody. This is my first time in this site, so I'm foreing nurse I waiting for my current license as RN. I want to find something like scholarship to begin my practice, because I haven't had job experience in this country, and when I check some jobs I saw that I need it.

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Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.

Do you mean you are interested in Infection Control Nurse/aka Nurse Epidemiologist? Do you want to work in a hospital or in Public Health?

If that's the case, get that BSN, and try to take extra classes in Epidemiology.

You might try shadowing an Infection Control Nurse as well as a Public Health Nurse.

Definitely check out the APIC site.

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Specializes in Adult and Pediatric Vascular Access, Paramedic.

LOL what do you want to control and what do you want to be infected with??

Swtooth

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Hi, All! I'm responding to this question because I have just taken a new position as an ADON at a LTC and Rehab facility. Infection control will be a big chunk of my responsibilities. I am very interested to learn of on-line educational sites and resources for tools to assist in tracking. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

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I am a preop nurse in an amb.surg center, peds and adults. Have recently been christened Infect.Cont.Prof!! Have joined APIC and am member of AORN. I have the "opportunity" to rewrite our Infect.Control Plan-New 2007 JCAHco guidelines, I am lost of a sea of paper and swimming against the current. You can access the APIC web site for their info which is vast and contact local ICP's at the hosp. in your area.

Does anyone have new plans that have been updated?

I really don't know where to start and I've been doing research for a month, in my spare time when I'm not doing my primary position.

Love a challenge(won't repeat what my husband calls this)

Thx

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Specializes in HIV Coordinator/Disease Intervention Spe.

I have worked in infection control for 20 years now, but not in a hospital but in prison. It depends on what area of infection control that you want. I just started a new job with the states and I am now the Infection control/HIV Coordinator and so far I am loving it.

You can visit sites such as CDC and your state health websites for information and some inservice training not to mention free CEU's and also check out medscape for info.

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hi to you all,

i currently work in a two hospital 400 bed acute care facilities as an infection control coordinator. i have been in this role for a little over 3 years and absolutely love what i am doing. prior to that i worked as an orthopedic nurse for about 20 years. there was an opening and i thought i would give it a try and never looked back since. these jobs do get pretty scarce, so if there is an opportunity to "shadow" an icp, i would give it a chance. if looking for guidance on policy, procedure and latest guidelines, we use the cdc as well as apic website. the apic website has a wonderful listserve with very responsive members to any question or guidance you might need. there are many levels of education and licensure in this field, i happen to be an lpn and needed to run our program for about 5 months while searching for another icp to head up the department. that meant 2 hospitals, surprise jcaho inspection, infection control committee meeting to set up and review all the surveillance data, as well as reports on current construction taking place..thankfully all went well! most of the icp's are either rn's or medical technologist's. that's not to say that there are not opportunities out there if you don't fall in those categories. it is a wonderful field, ever changing, challenging and i learn every day, in fact, it has encouraged me to go back to school to work on my bachelor's. never a dull moment on the job! best of luck. ;)

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