Wound care tips for new nurse

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Hi, new graduate nurse here. Start my job early next year on an orthopaedic trauma ward.

One of the things I'm most nervous about is my poor wound care skills. I didn't have many opportunities to do many dressings during my degree tbh, the wards I was on didn't see many complex wounds. And when I did, i was slow and had an intimidating instructor watching over me, criticizing and made me feel incompetent without offering to help.

I also feel like my knowledge is lacking in this area. I struggle figuring out which type of dressing should go on each type of wound. There's soo many different dressing packs to use, I just get confused with which one to pick and which one would be suitable. Doesn't help when the dressing packs allll look the exact same and have similar names with no writing on the pack to explain what it is.

I'm also slow at cleaning wounds. I find using the forceps to be fiddly a lot of the time, to the point where it'll take me forever just to fold up the gauze into smaller pieces. Is it just practice? Do you use sterile gloves for the really complex wounds?

Any tips on how to assess a wound and decide which dressing should be used?

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Deep breath and don't worry... This is something you will slowly pick up, ask for assistance and guidance and I am sure things will fall into place

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