Ophthalmic Nursing

I am a pre-nursing student and I am very interested an ophthalmic nurse but there is very little inforamtion about this area of nursing. I was wondering what their work environment is like, is it hectic or laid back? What are their duties exactly? and what is their basic rate of pay? I welcome any input. Thanx :)

Ophthalmic nursing is very interesting. The environment can be varied depending where in the ophthalmic hospital you are working. Duty of an ophthalmic nurse is to care for patients with ophthalmic problems. Ophthalmic nurse works in out patient setting where majority of patients are seen in specilist clinic when they are refered from community setting, nurses works in in-patient ward taking care of patients who had major ophthalmic sugery, nurse works in day case unit where majority of cases such as cataracts are done as day cases, or nurse could work in ophthalmic theatre. In uk ophthalmic nurses can become specialize in certain area and become nurse practitioner, for e.g cataract practitioner or glaucoma practitioner and so on. In uk pay would be make no different whether you are ophthalmic nurse or general nurse. It depends on how senior you are.

I worked for retinal surgeons 9 years and general ophthalmic surgeon 5 years, but not as a nurse. I never met one who hired an RN, because the high-school educated, certified ophthalmic techs are allowed to do most things an RN would do, since you are under direct supervision of MD. I know a few RN's have jobs in ophthalmology, but I had to get out of that field to work as RN (and be paid more!). I loved it as a tech though. No narcotics to worry with, no real pain (except trauma or bad infections), very little bleeding---it was great. And the patients are great. I miss it, but can't afford to go back.