Do you have to be certified to debride wounds in a hospital?

[ohmeowzer RN]

Here's the situation... A Dr wrote an order Friday for a burn wound to be debrided on Monday and for PT and named the PTs he wanted to do it and to do it using instruments .. A nurse I work with has debrided a pt before and was told not to because she wasn't certified.. She got sick of waiting and used a surgical stub brush and did it herself .. This pt is a burn pt deep burns and it's been about 3 weeks sine the pt was burned... The RN said she knew how to do it and didn't feel the need to wait for the physical Therapists ...do you need to be certified as a RN to do wound debridement? Was she okay to just do it on her own even if the dr who wrote the order told her not to do it? It did look good to me when she was done.. Is wound debridement in a RN's scope of practice? I've been a RN since 1986 and never debrided a wound ! I guess the RN who did it was in the army and did it there .. Ty all for listening ! Oh is there a special class you take for wound debridement ? Correction that's scrub brush !!

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

Not a wound specialist, but I thought wet-to-dry dressings (where when the dry dressing is pulled off, fresh bleeding results) had been soundly discredited in favor of a moist wound environment, to allow fibroblasts and all do their thing? If your facility is still doing them, suggest that you get a good WOCN (wound-ostomy-continence certification) nurse to come in and talk about all the different types of dressings for different types of wounds.