Nursing Procedures/Duties

[studentdan]

I'm new to this site so I'm sorry if this is posted in the wrong place. :)

I was just curious as to what procedures or duties a nurse would do on a patient; as in bathing, injections etc.

Could someone provide a list of these please. I've searched the internet and there only seems to be a small amount listed. I'm starting my nursing course in September and I am super excited!

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

way too long a list. Better to go to school library and look at nursing textbook.

[CaLLaCoDe, BSN, RN]

Yes, even in medsurge, you'll be expected and required to perform a bed bath now and then. And sometimes the patient will be incontinent of urine or stool; and, yes you'll be expected to clean the whole patient up. But most of the time you'll be coordinating care with the MDs, the respiratory therapists, the speech therapists and the certified nurse assistants.

You'll do a physical assessment on each patient and get an idea as to what your plan of care will be; some of your patients may require more care than others, especially the ones having trouble breathing! You'll be looking through the last 24 hours of MD orders, such as changes in dosages of meds; you'll be administering medications and making sure you know the purpose of the med and it's cautions prior to giving; you may change some dressings to surgical sites.

You'll be treating a lot of your patient's for pain most of the day. You'll be turning patients who cannot turn for themselves every 2 hours. Finally, you'll be spending an awful lot of your time charting these events.

I probably left a lot out. In fact I know I did, on purpose!! Nursing is a cool profession with everyone working with autonomy and troubleshooting patient's conditions often jointly; no nurse works entirely independently, as in others adding info on this thread as to what nursing involves.

In summary, I agree with the above poster, the list can be vast. In addition, each department, be it ICU, Labor and Delivery, Mental Health, has its own domain and with it diverse duties to attend to. Yippee!!

OH, and Good Luck with SCHOOL!!! You've found the best resource for nurses on the net IMHO.

I recommend you go to the student nurses section of this site to see what your in for during the rocky road of surviving nursing school. Again, you made a smart choice to check out this site. You're on your way to success!

[Bug Out, BSN]

We do whatever it takes to assist our patients through their issues...any and all issues.

Nursing is so vast that it is impossible to list all the duties and tasks that are in front of us. There are Nurses that focus on mental health, there are Nurses that focus upon wounds, there are Nurses that focus upon children, etc etc etc.

We are the patient's advocate. We live, breathe and die for that patient. We use a holistic care model to heal the person.

We treat people, not diseases...if that makes sense.

[Augustina_Days]

You will start off with the educational components in school and slowly drift into practicing hands on skills through clinical or practice lab. Take it easy and transition slowly without putting too much stress on yourself. Congrats and enjoy the prosperous future ahead of you.

Here is a general outline of what you may find in your early years of education/practice.

Good luck:D

Head to toe assessment

Assessment: Intake and Output

Transfer Technique: Assisting patients from bed to chair, to sitting position

Using Transfer Agents: Slide board or mechanical liftAmbulation Aids: Measuring and fitting when necessary

Ambulation Aids: Patient Teaching

Bathing a Patient: Complete or Partial Bed Baths

Bed Making: Occupied

Bed Making: Unoccupied

Bedpans and urinals, toileting needs of patient

Communication is key: communicating with a depressed, angry, anxious and etc patient

Indwelling Urinary Catheter: Insertion

Urinary Catheters: Condom catheters, indwelling catheter care, irrigation

Indwelling Urinary Catheter: Removal

Indwelling Urinary Catheter: Urinalysis Collection

Medication Therapy: Intravenous Medication, by mouth (PO), subcutaneous injections, Intramuscular injections, ear & eye drops, metered-dose inhalers, rectal suppositories

Isolation Precautions

Medication Administration: Nasogastric Tube

Oral Hygiene: Please don’t forget the small stuff that is very important

Nasogastric Tube: Insertion and Removal

Ostomy Appliance: Change

Oxygen Therapy and Oxygen Delivery: General Principles

Pain Assessment and management

Specimen Collection: Midstream (Clean-Voided) Urine, nose and throat specimens for culture, sputum, timed urine specimen, wound drainage specimen

Staple and suture removal

Sterile Field Preparation

Wound care

Suctioning: Artificial airway, nasopharyngeal, nasotracheal, oropharyngeal

Blood and Blood Component: Administration

Tracheostomy Care

[studentdan]

Thanks for that list! It was very helpful. :)

[aura_of_laura]

We live, breathe and die for that patient.

I wouldn't go that far. Nursing is a profession, not a religious vocation. Plus, many nurses work outside of direct patient care.

Honestly, OP, nursing is too varied to list responsibilities - it really depends on the job, and even then you will pick up many responsibilities outside of your job description. For example, I maintain my facilities laboratory certifications, coordinate and administer employee vaccinations and health info, develop patient and staff education tools, train new hires, stay up to date on all local and national health news, and write policies as needed. I sit on the Safety Committee, Pharmacy, Nutrition, and Therapy (PNT) Committee, and Performance Improvement Committee. I coordinated a multi-disciplinary plan for pandemic influenza preparation for four facilities and then wrote that plan. I track and trend all incident reports and infection reports on a monthly basis.

I also do things as banal as ordering hand sanitizer.

Basically, nursing is as varied as nurses are!

[CaLLaCoDe, BSN, RN]

Nursing is more than just blitzing your question with a list!