New nurse, interested...some questions

[JennyMac]

Hi everyone, I'm interested in correctional nursing. I've only been working as an RN for 5 months on a telemetry unit, and I have found I don't like hospital nursing. I am trying to figure out what else I can do. Did anyone here get into this without much prior experience?

What are the basic duties of an RN in corrections? Do you need to perform skills such as IV starts, foleys, etc.? I guess my main question is, what skills are less important/not done in this setting, and what are more important things to have experienced?

I'm in NY, near nyc...Thanks in advance for all replies!

[MadisonsMomRN, BSN, RN]

I have worked in a state prison since May 07 and in a county detention center since Oct 07.

The prison is a pretty good size one and houses about 3500 male inmates. I work in the infirmary which is like a small hospital. I do dressing changes, many IV sticks, blood draws, IV meds (bags and pushes) foleys, feeding tubes etc. We do various tests... dipsticks, hemacults, wound cultures and total care for some patients. We have 3 total cares right now. They are our chronic patients that can not be in the housing units. We have a total of 8 chronic inmates... dx vary from severe COPD, severe cardiomyopathy, lung cancer(he is really compromised)(you get the idea :)) It can be super busy one day and real slow the next.

I have done sick call clinics too when I worked in the dispensary. We basically did finger sticks and insulins, saw inmates that were having acute issues, bp checks and triage. We saw people with chest pain, or any other acute ailment that needed attention then. There is pill call... where a nurse stands at a window and inmates come up to the window to get their meds. The inmates that are in ad seg (locked down) the meds are pulled and carried to them. Lets see... I am sure there is more but this is the brunt of it.

You deal with emergencies. I have seen heroin overdoses where we have had to initiate CPR and give narcan. Stabbings (among other inmates) fights. I have seen fractures from inmates falling playing basketball or smashed fingers from lifting weights.

This is at the prison I work at. The detention center is a different world. There are some things that are the same but you get people right off the street and deal with many many psych issues and drug/alcohol detox.

I have seen suicide attempts at both... I have seen one succeed.

I didn't have any correctional experience when I applied. I personally like it.