HIV/AIDS Nurse

[greatgiginthesky]

Hi everybody,

I am a prenursing student that is interested in working with HIV/AIDS populations after completing my bachelors. My ultimate goal is to become a nurse practitioner working with infectious disease prevention and treatment in at risk populations. I have been researching ways in which I could work with HIV/AIDS patients after completing my bachelors, but the information is sporifice and somewhat confusing. I first read that I can become an HIV/AIDS nurse with only a BSN and AIDS certification, but after reading a few threads here it seems that I would need an ANP with a focus in HIV/AIDS.

If someone has any information on the educational requirements to be a nurse in a HIV/AIDS clinic or long term care facility it would be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much in advance.

[Buyer beware, BSN]

OP;

Some of the folks on this site are veterans of the "signs and symptom" days. This was what the HIV/AIDS constellation of symptoms was called even before the causative virus was identified. The afflicted patients it was observationally discovered over time fell into two main groups. One with GI problems from hell with intractible diarrhea who would always die from hypovolemic shock despite fluid replacement and the other with severe respiratory problems that always required intubation invariably leading to the same conclusion, death.

I was involved in a few long term studies conducted by the CDC in conjunction with doctors at Emory university in Atlanta,Ga. Sometimes I cringe when I see gratuitous shows about the Zombie armageddon when all I can think of is the real armaggedon that occured mostly in the inner cities before the advent of AZT and way long before today's antiviral coctail so to speak.

I first heard reference to AIDS, although again it wasn't called that, by serendipitously reading an article about the phenomen in 1980 in Discovery magazine. Doctors, microbiologists were suddenly aware of all sorts of atypical organisms that usually only rear their ugly heads when the immune system is laid waste.

There is so much more to say but if you are interested in this subject I urge you to read one of the many good books on the subject. I'll be honest with you I haven't read any of them because I lived it so I couldn't recommend one over the other.

As far as learning about AIDs/HIV and specializing in that area, I would say that the most hands on experience as a nurse you could get would be to land a position in most inner city hospitals. In these places you will see the ravaging effects of HIV patients who through drug non-compliance for one reason or another had a disease progression from HIV to what is reffered to as "full blown" AIDS.

So to the point. Since nurses are really generalists and should be genearlists the move to areas of the hospital such as the exaulted ICU or ED are just variations on a theme and should not be valued or devalued as being any less or more important than any other area. Everyone therefore has a specialty and brings something unique to the table.

If working as an NP in infectious disease is your ultimate goal as I mentioned the inner city ICU especially will give you all the hands on you can stand. Get to know ID doctors. Most of these people are pretty smart and surprisingly so. That's a joke. But I believe the segue would be more seemless for you if as an NP you're as they say hooked up.

I hope this helps you. In the field your interested in you must be a diligent believer in what you're getting into because the patient population can be a handful to say the least. But with the emergence of more and more antibiotic super bugs you will undoubedtly have your hands full.