Need good thorough list of RN med surg skills.

[Rosady84]

Hi!

I have been searching for a good thorough listing of all the skills and knowledge that Med Surg Rn's have. I am trying to complete an in depth resume and I need it as detailed as possible! This is such a broad subject I know I'm missing skills and have not been able to find a very complete list anywhere. Any advice on where to look?

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

Applications and Skills Checklists for Travel Nursing Jobs and Travel Allied Healthcare Jobs

click on Med Surg checklist.

[blackribbon]

Depends on where you work really. My first med/surg job was at a very small hospital so we had every patient on our floor. I did what was basically "observation" to patients who were almost ICU including high level CIWA and patients who were changing before our eyes. Now I work at a very large hospital and my specialize med/surg population is gyn patients (so hysterectomy, ectopic pregnancies, fetal demise) and then every almost every other med/surg condition....our only limitation is that we are women only. We overflow from the peds floor so we can have girls age 13 and up. Lately the hospital has been so full, that we often get patients who probably belong on other floors but there isn't room for them. Overall, I do a lot of GI/abdominal pain/nausea/vomiting, COPD exacerbation, CHF related complications, hanging blood for anemics, and infections that need IV antibiotics...that and post surgical hysterectomies. We barely touched gyn problems in school ... the focus was on labor and delivery so I have learned a bunch while on the floor (often go home and look things up). I would think that a long resume would not work in your favor unless you have been in nursing for a long time. It would be wiser to focus on your willingness to put in the effort to learn the things that you aren't familiar with. Skills can be learned...the ability to assess a patient and recognize something going wrong before it does is a much more important aspect of being a nurse.