Expert nurse

Cqc_Cqb · Jun 30, 2005

Malusport

I have been working in an Intensive Care Unit for 15+ years. I would say I am an expert nurse, but I would also say that I don't know everything about Intensive Care nursing. There are just too many aspects to nursing that you can never really know everything about a specialty. Some new way of doing a procedure or new clinical information about a treatment option will always be there.

However you can make yourself very comfortable in an ICU by going to a critical care course and learning as much as you can from the seasoned nurses around you. You can also join the AACN which has a journal and CEUs you can use to improve you skills and stay up with current trends. You can also get certified in some of the subspecialties in the ICU. Like balloon pump and CVVH. After about 2 years of experience you should start studying for your CCRN. I think it takes about 5 years to have the feel that you need to be an ICU nurse. That instinct to know something is wrong even when you can't put your finger on exactly what it is.

One of the biggest things I think that makes a person able to become "an expert nurse" quickly is how much time are you willing to put into your specialty to learn it and adapt to it.

I hope I was a little help.

Walter

In which nursing speciality do you feel that once you're trained and spent a little bit of time in the field you know what to do exactly?
The thing with me is that I want to learn a speciality and want to become an expert in it and know how to do my job.
I don't want to ask for help. (Help may not be availabe since it's usually short staffed).
I guess what I am really trying to ask is in which specialty that you worked on took the least amount of time to learn and be an expert?
I mean, you can do the job in your sleep........
The reason I ask this is because I don't want to be constantly bombarded with new things and have to keep asking for help.
Let me know from your personal experience.
In which speciality do you feel that you can do your job in your sleep?
Thanks,
Aaron
PS: Please respond only if you've worked in that speciality. Thanks.

tyrese · Jun 30, 2005

there is basically no specialties in nursing which you can "sleep" on the job...you are taking care of human lives here...pardon me...but how could you even ask such a question??? I am in the gastrosurg area for 8 years now...and I'm still learning new things always...I have never dreamt of coming to a point where I can "sleep" on the job..perhaps what you are asking is which specialty you can adpat well without a need for constant adaptation tochanges....in my opinion...its never possible..not in nursing....cos the medical field is always on an advancing phase......just my two cents worth...not trying to sound condescending here,,,,

nitengale75 · Jun 30, 2005

In which nursing speciality do you feel that once you're trained and spent a little bit of time in the field you know what to do exactly?
The thing with me is that I want to learn a speciality and want to become an expert in it and know how to do my job.
I don't want to ask for help. (Help may not be availabe since it's usually short staffed).
I guess what I am really trying to ask is in which specialty that you worked on took the least amount of time to learn and be an expert?
I mean, you can do the job in your sleep........
The reason I ask this is because I don't want to be constantly bombarded with new things and have to keep asking for help.
Let me know from your personal experience.
In which speciality do you feel that you can do your job in your sleep?
Thanks,
Aaron
PS: Please respond only if you've worked in that speciality. Thanks.

I worked in dialysis from 1975 to 1989. I could do it in my sleep. But I was ready to leave after 14 years. I have been a certified school nurse for 15 years and just completed my M.Ed. 2 years ago. I have found that if I can not find something new to learn that I will be bored and burned out. So, I look for new things to learn, to do or just do differently in order to keep the fires of nursing burning. And yes, I considered myself an expert nurse in dialysis and currently an expert in school nursing.

Dayray, RN · Jul 7, 2005

My advise is that you go put in an application at one of the grociery stores. They are union jobs and pay simmilerly to nursing. If you want an easy job you don't belong in nursing. If you can't handle new things or learning then you will be very unhappy in nursing. If you are reluctant to ask for help you are going to kill someone. Nursing no mater how long you have done it is never automatic.

Really this is not the attitude that you should have going in to nursing. It is also a really bad attitude to have assosicated with a male nurse forum. One of the main anti-male nurse steriotypes we have to fight aginst is the attiude you put forth in this post.

Please don't continue in nursing if this is really how you feel about it.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Jul 7, 2005

There was a nursing study we learned recently in school, or maybe it was a theory, but called "From Novice to Expert". I read the difinition of an expert, because after 14 years of med-surg surely, I'm an "expert. But actually I'm not.

I'm very comfortable with my job, and precept students and new grads, but I'm hardly an expert. I learn things every day and I have to look up a lot of things the students ask me, and more often I'm learning from them and asking them questions. :)

matt033174 · Jul 11, 2005

I've been an ED nurse for 12 years and I can't think of a single field of nursing where you do not need to keep learning. Thinks change in medicine all of the time. I have been in medicine for only a short time and have seen medicines come and goprocedures go into common practice that were cutting edge when I started. You have to grom consently. I agree with the sacker job or maybe a nice factory. Same thing day in day out, and the good thing is almost no one dies on you.

mwbeah · Jul 11, 2005

I've been an ED nurse for 12 years and I can't think of a single field of nursing where you do not need to keep learning. Thinks change in medicine all of the time. I have been in medicine for only a short time and have seen medicines come and goprocedures go into common practice that were cutting edge when I started. You have to grom consently. I agree with the sacker job or maybe a nice factory. Same thing day in day out, and the good thing is almost no one dies on you.

Matt, I agree 110%! A wise old provider told me one day:

"The day you stop learning or wanting to learn, its time to retire."

I found some of these quotes (remember this is for FUN)

"An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until eventually he knows everything about nothing."

"Expert: a man who makes three correct guesses consecutively."

"An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field."

"Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything."

"An expert is someone who knows a lot about the past."

and there are many many more at this site (lots of quotes about lots of things):

http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/expert/

Hope I made you smile,

Mike

Editorial Team / Admin · Jul 11, 2005

In which nursing speciality do you feel that once you're trained and spent a little bit of time in the field you know what to do exactly?
The thing with me is that I want to learn a speciality and want to become an expert in it and know how to do my job.
I don't want to ask for help. (Help may not be availabe since it's usually short staffed).
I guess what I am really trying to ask is in which specialty that you worked on took the least amount of time to learn and be an expert?
I mean, you can do the job in your sleep........
The reason I ask this is because I don't want to be constantly bombarded with new things and have to keep asking for help.
Let me know from your personal experience.
In which speciality do you feel that you can do your job in your sleep?
Thanks,
Aaron
PS: Please respond only if you've worked in that speciality. Thanks.

Not to sound mean, but, I would have to agree with DayRay. You most assuredly need to get out of the nursing profession. There is NO area in which you would not have to learn new things. Nursing issues and the care of the patient changes day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute...mainly because EVERY patient is a different entity.

Not asking for help means you have a GOD complex and are dangerous.

Please, I do hope you mean something else in your thread and just said it in this manner.

barefootlady, ADN, RN · Jul 11, 2005

I have, like Tweety and many others on here, worked in specific units for long periods of time. Enough time to become comfortable with the routine, the orders, the doctors, and to be able to make sound nursing diagnosis for most, if not every one of my patients. BUT, I never have felt nor do I anticipate feeling, I am such an expert on my unit, I could do the job in my sleep. I learn something everyday I work, if possible, even if it's nothing more than a new words. I hope I never become so secure I feel that I can do nursing in my sleep. I am sure if I ever did I would soon be called into someone office and have a great number of errors reported to me.

shodobe · Jul 12, 2005

That's the problem with this group sometimes is that you all take some things too literal. I read and re-read the poster and didn't get the impression that he wanted an "easy" job. I think he wanted to be able to learn his skills in a relative short time without a lot of stress. How many of you have said, " I could do that practically in my sleep!" All of you at one time or another. Now, I know he didn't really mean that you could sleep through your shift, even though I swear some of the nurses in the hospital do this. All specialties have their learning curve, some harder and longer than others. I am not going to get into the argument of who has the toughest job and who's job requires much more nursing skills. This doesn't work. There are some "specialties" that take less time to learn and master and this doesn't make your job any less important than the other guys. As for asking for help, this could pose a problem because you definitely don't want to do something that could harm a patient, but watching someone, as a preceptor, do something that is totally wrong without correcting them is as bad as the preceptor doing it. Turning a deaf ear to someone or closing your eyes doesn't help the situation. So, asking for help or advice is a "good thing" as Martha Stewart would say. Also with the severe nursing shortage, wouldn't it be better to give "good" advice instead of telling someone to go and work at a grocery store. Poor advice with the majority of you guys and quite frankly I don't think any of you would be very good preceptors, no patience. So instead of chatising the individual, give him some good advice and remember that everyone has their opinion of what an "expert" is and most of us really are only proficient and highly skilled in our areas. I think telling him a little about what you do and how you got there would be of great help. He could decide wether he wanted to be a dialysis nurse, an ED nurse, M/S, GI lab or what I do, the OR. Every day there's a thing or two to learn, so we are always "trying" to an expert. Enough said for now. I think Tweety said it best in their post.Mike

Dayray, RN · Jul 12, 2005

That's the problem with this group sometimes is that you all take some things too literal. I read and re-read the poster and didn't get the impression that he wanted an "easy" job. I think he wanted to be able to learn his skills in a relative short time without a lot of stress. How many of you have said, " I could do that practically in my sleep!" All of you at one time or another. Now, I know he didn't really mean that you could sleep through your shift, even though I swear some of the nurses in the hospital do this. All specialties have their learning curve, some harder and longer than others. I am not going to get into the argument of who has the toughest job and who's job requires much more nursing skills. This doesn't work. There are some "specialties" that take less time to learn and master and this doesn't make your job any less important than the other guys. As for asking for help, this could pose a problem because you definitely don't want to do something that could harm a patient, but watching someone, as a preceptor, do something that is totally wrong without correcting them is as bad as the preceptor doing it. Turning a deaf ear to someone or closing your eyes doesn't help the situation. So, asking for help or advice is a "good thing" as Martha Stewart would say. Also with the severe nursing shortage, wouldn't it be better to give "good" advice instead of telling someone to go and work at a grocery store. Poor advice with the majority of you guys and quite frankly I don't think any of you would be very good preceptors, no patience. So instead of chatising the individual, give him some good advice and remember that everyone has their opinion of what an "expert" is and most of us really are only proficient and highly skilled in our areas. I think telling him a little about what you do and how you got there would be of great help. He could decide wether he wanted to be a dialysis nurse, an ED nurse, M/S, GI lab or what I do, the OR. Every day there's a thing or two to learn, so we are always "trying" to an expert. Enough said for now. I think Tweety said it best in their post.Mike

I thought that maybe I did misinterpret this guy's post, so before I responded I looked at some of his other treads. After reading his other threads, it seems to me that this guy is either a student in his prereqes who is really really really .................................exterealmy poorly suited to nursing or a troll trying to piss people off.

Even with the nursing shortage I wouldn't want someone with his attitudes taking care of people.

It doesn't mean that he is a bad person or less then those of us who are nurses but someone with these attitudes most likely will not make it threw nursing school and if he did would be a bad nurse. Not to mention he would perpetuate the negative attitudes people have about nursing in the public and the bad attitude people have about men in nursing.

In nursing if you do not ask questions ...you will kill someone. Maybe that sounds harsh but hey it is harsh because killing someone is a big deal. Can you honestly say that it's not true? No.

A person that does not want to learn would be very resistant to the constantly changing policies and standards of care and very quickly find themselves lost and bitter.

Nursing is not a field for people who want to come to work and "go threw the motions" which is what I interpret his saying "a job you can do in your sleep" to mean.

Call me a poor preceptor if you like but no matter how bad the nursing shortage is this guy would not be good for nursing and nursing wouldn't be good for him. By the way I happen to love teaching new nurses my field and encouraging them. This is the first person I have encouraged to seek another field.

Hey if I misinterpreted what he said, I apologize I however doubt that I did. I think that he either meant to stir up trouble or is truly and completely oblivious to what nursing is supposed to be. Either way I helped him. If he is a troll then he'll get his jollies from stirring us up or if he was sincere then maybe he will find happiness sacking groceries at Safeway