Please help a student out!

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Mar 22, 2001

Check out nursing section at your school library on Nursing Careers or do a literature search on line. Librarians will teach you how to perform a search if you are having problems.

This is site has limited info. http://www.nursingspectrum.com/CareersInNursing/Specialties/index.htm

Jay-Jay, RN · Mar 23, 2001

Basically, the training of any of these nurses would be the same. After graduation, they may chose to take extra courses in their specialist area. For example, the LTC nurse might want to study gerontology.

The acute care nurse is your 'average' hospital nurse. Her role would vary a bit depending on which department she worked in, but hospital nurses in general provide hands on patient care to patients who have surgical or medical problems. They do dressings, IV's, vital signs, transcribe Dr's orders, update the charts, etc, etc.

Homecare nurses travel around the community seeing pts. who for the most part, have recently been released from hospital. As well as doing dressings, IV's, vitals, etc. they have to liase with the homecare system (in Canada, we are under contract to a government run body called the Community Care Access Centre). We inform the CCAC of what the pt. needs in the way of equipment and supplies, homemaking, physio. (Often these things have already been ordered, if the CCAC case manager is on the ball.) When necessary, we call the doctor to arrange tests or suggest changes in medication/ treatment. A hospital nurse would not have such a proactive relationship with the doctor...quite often, I've found myself telling the doctor exactly what to write in the way of an order!! Yes, some days I looove my job!

LTC nurses have more of a supervisory role. Most of the hands on care is given by health care aids/PSW's. The nurse gives out meds, does treatments (dressings, etc.) transcribes doctors orders, and supervises other staff. I've worked relief assignments in LTC, and except for doing med rounds, a lot of the time is spent at the desk answering the phone and doing paperwork (charting, etc.) Depending on the institution, on night shift, the nurse might find herself helping to change and turn patients. Be prepared to change a LOT of diapers if you go into long term care! Good skin care is extremely important to bed and wheelchair bound patients.

A suggestion: why don't you hunt up a nurse who works in each of these fields, and interview her? The role of the nurse varies slightly from institution to institution, and what I've said about homecare may not apply to the United States. It will be a great way of finding out the pros and cons of each of the different kinds of nursing work!

coolnurse21 · Mar 25, 2001

Thank you for the information!!

I am sure it will help me on my paper.

Didnt you just love all the busy work you had in school?

iamme457 · Mar 26, 2001

I thought all the stuff we had to do in nursing school was to help prepare us for what we would face as nurses. I am glad I did take it all seriously as it helped a lot.

I went from med/surg to ICU/CVICU to ICU/critical care transport, then to Trauma/Neuro and back to critical care transport for a short time and now supervisior in a large facility with sub-acute/long term care/and alzheimers with a behavioral intensive care center. I learned how to find the answers to questions during nursing school. You won't always have staff that is experienced enough or trustable enough to depend on. I could give you the answers quickly to all your questions and write all your papers, but I cannot lead you through your nursing career. Don't get me wrong, asking questions is a good thing, but learning how to find the answers with the reference material that is available is just as good.

coolnurse21 · Mar 27, 2001

I would like to clarify my post. The paper I am writing asked for responses from RN`s in these setings. The only way to do this is to ask RN`s, this is why I posted this question. I am not looking for anyone to do my homework for me. Thank you.