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Career Exploration

Acute Care Nurses

Also called: Cardiac Interventional Care Nurse, Charge Nurse, Progressive Care Unit RN (Progressive Care Unit Registered Nurse), Staff Nurse

What they do:

Provide advanced nursing care for patients with acute conditions such as heart attacks, respiratory distress syndrome, or shock. May care for pre- and post-operative patients or perform advanced, invasive diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.

On the job, you would:
  • Perform emergency medical procedures, such as basic cardiac life support (BLS), advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), and other condition-stabilizing interventions.
  • Manage patients' pain relief and sedation by providing pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions, monitoring patients' responses, and changing care plans accordingly.
  • Document data related to patients' care, including assessment results, interventions, medications, patient responses, or treatment changes.
On the job, you'll need:

Health

  • medicine and dentistry
  • therapy and counseling

Business

  • customer service

Arts and Humanities

  • English language

Education and Training

  • teaching and course design

Basic Skills

  • keeping track of how well people and/or groups are doing in order to make improvements
  • listening to others, not interrupting, and asking good questions

Problem Solving

  • noticing a problem and figuring out the best way to solve it

Social

  • looking for ways to help people
  • understanding people's reactions

Verbal

  • listen and understand what people say
  • communicate by speaking

Ideas and Logic

  • notice when problems happen
  • make general rules or come up with answers from lots of detailed information

Attention

  • pay attention to something without being distracted
  • do two or more things at the same time

Social

People interested in this work like activities that include helping people, teaching, and talking.

  • Integrity
  • Stress Tolerance
  • Attention to Detail
  • Dependability
  • Adaptability/Flexibility
  • Concern for Others

Medical software

  • eClinicalWorks EHR software
  • GE Healthcare Centricity EMR

Presentation software

  • Microsoft PowerPoint

Electronic mail software

  • IBM Lotus Notes
  • Microsoft Outlook

Job Outlook

The job outlook for this position is Bright.

New job opportunities are very likely in the future. This career will grow rapidly in the next few years and will have large numbers of openings.

Median Annual Salary: $81,220

Education

Associate's degree or bachelor's degree is usually needed.