If you’re wondering how to become a critical care nurse, the journey entails meeting rigorous education requirements, receiving on-the-job training, and earning certification. Additionally, you must meet the ongoing training requirements defined by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN). Maryville University’s online Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program helps students gain the skills needed to advance into a critical care nursing career.
What Does a Critical Care Nurse Do?
A critical care nurse provides specialized care to patients who are critically ill or suffer from life-threatening injuries that require advanced care in ICUs, emergency rooms, neonatal ICUs, pediatric ICUs, cardiac care units, cardiac catheter labs, telemetry units, progressive units, and recovery rooms. Critical care nurses work alongside other healthcare professionals, including doctors, surgeons, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, nurse researchers, nurse educators, and healthcare case managers.
In addition to hospitals, work settings for critical care nurses include patients’ personal residences, outpatient surgery centers, private physicians’ offices, managed care centers, and nursing schools. Critical care nurses perform complex patient assessments, implement intensive interventions and therapies, and monitor patients. A critically ill or injured patient’s condition can worsen quickly without warning, so critical care nurses must be able to immediately change a current care plan and provide emergency care.
The duties of a critical care nurse often include cleaning and bandaging a patient’s wounds, tracking life support equipment, and immediately responding to changes in a patient’s condition. These nurses may also serve as advocates, supporting and respecting the basic rights, values, and beliefs of critically ill or injured patients. Acting as patients’ representatives, critical care nurses find additional resources outside of the immediate care setting to assist in their patients’ recovery.
Critical care nurses work with patients and families experiencing extreme stress. Providing serious medical care for patients requires that these professionals be empathetic, sensitive, and compassionate while coping with major medical and life-or-death situations. Critical care nurses should be prepared to handle a wide range of emotions resulting from interactions with patients and their families. Often, critical nurses will have to make tough, objective decisions while remaining calm and caring.
Critical Care Nurse Education Requirements
Because working in a critical care department requires advanced skills, critical care nurse education requirements often include earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing. To become a critical care nurse, a health professional must first become a registered nurse, which requires a bachelor’s or associate degree. Registered nurses can advance to the critical care nursing profession after earning a critical care certification and state license and gaining one to five years of on-the-job experience caring for acutely or critically ill patients. After earning a bachelor’s degree, some critical care nurses may pursue a master’s degree to take on leadership positions in the critical care nursing field.
Critical Care Nurse Skills
Critical care nurses need strong decision-making and leadership capabilities to function in a high-stress, fast-paced environment such as an ICU or emergency trauma unit. Health professionals working in critical care settings also need to be familiar with complex medical equipment such as respirators and cardiac monitors. Some of the skills a critical care nurse needs include:
- Communication: Critical care nurses are vital communication links for patients, families, and doctors.
- Critical thinking: Emergency situations require nurses to make important medical decisions quickly to serve critical patient needs while paying close attention to detail to avoid errors.
- Physical endurance: Nurses in critical care settings must perform strenuous tasks and often remain on their feet for entire shifts.
Other characteristics of a critical care nurse include:
- Resiliency: Nurses need emotional strength, as nursing can be a mentally demanding and emotionally challenging profession.
- Confidence: Nurses must be confident in their knowledge and decisions to ensure proper patient treatment.
- Compassion: Nurses should maintain empathy for and sensitivity to patients and families.
Types of Critical Care Nurses
Critical care nurses can pursue certification in several specialties, including:
- Acute/Critical Care Nurse-Adult (CCRN-Adult): Nurses provide direct care for acutely or critically ill adults in a variety of locations, including ICUs and cardiac care units.
- Acute/Critical Care Nurse-Pediatric (CCRN-Pediatric): Nurses care for acutely or critically ill children in many settings, including ICUs and trauma units.
- Acute/Critical Care Nurse-Neonatal (CCRN-Neonatal): Nurses care for newborns and premature infants in critical or acute conditions, typically in NICUs and other specialty care units.
Other career options open to critical care nurses include:
- TeleICU Nurse: These nurses specialize in providing bedside remote care via audiovisual communication and computer equipment. TeleICU professionals typically work from a central or remote location.
- Transport/Flight Nurse: These nurses provide care to critically injured or ill patients during ambulance, helicopter, or plane transports.
- Head CCU Nurse: These nurses lead critical care departments such as ICUs, NICUs, and trauma units. Duties include staff supervision, quality monitoring, and inventory management.
Steps to Become a Critical Care Nurse
If a nursing career with an emphasis on taking care of severely ill or injured patients sparks your interest, you’ll need to know the education, certification, and experience requirements for becoming a critical care nurse.
The path toward becoming a critical care nurse begins with launching a career as a registered nurse. Because of the demands and complexity of administering critical care, many employers require a prospective critical care nurse to have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). Nurses often learn the advanced skills to become a critical care nurse through field training in a hospital setting.
Critical care nurses need to have the CCRN credential offered through the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN). The skills required to become a critical care nurse are similar to those required to become a registered nurse.
