WHAT IS BEDSIDE NURSING?. AS A REGISTERED NURSE DO YOU LIKE BEDSIDE NURSING?.(MY PERSPECTIVE)

REQUIREMENTS:

Graduated from Accredited Nursing School. RN License.

Basic Life Support.(By America Red Cross)

Advance Cardiac Life Support.

Bedside nursing simply means “Direct Patient Care”. That is taking care of patients at home,hospitals, Inpatient, Outpatient clinics, Skilled Nursing Facility, Convalescent nursing care,and Ambulatory settings. Majority of nurses work in hospital settings and hospitals have different sizes,different locations and offer different services.

Generally most nurses who work in the hospitals, work directly with patients who came in for surgical treatment, medical conditions , children, neonates, women with their newborns,patients with chronic illnesses, traumatic accident, cancer patients, burn patients, emergency room, urgent care and other health care services. The educational credentials that are required for you to work as a Registered Nurse ranges from associate degree in Nursing or baccalaureate degree in Nursing but you must have your license and your CPR card that is the entry level requirement for bedside nursing.

While staying in bedside as staff nurse (direct patient care) you can progress in career ladder programs.As a bedside nurse you can be a charge nurse which makes you in charge of activities in your unit, including continuous quality improvement, patients care,resource nurse,personnel selection and evaluation and management. Being a charge nurse is like running a business and you are in charge of a business which means that you need to be effective and efficient with entrepreneur spirit.

There are other nursing jobs in hospitals that require masters or even doctorate degree.But as a bedside nurse you need to understand and obtain all the certification that you will need in your specialty area as a bedside nurse including your license.Renew your license every two years. For example if you will be a bedside nurse in MedTelemetry get your ACLS certificate, you want to work in ICU get your critical care certificate in addition to ACLS and your CPR from American re cross. Learn all the required skills and be very good at it.For example insertion of saline lock,foley catheter, central line dressing, dressing changes and the list goes one.One major advice is to love the job so that you can cope,have your sense of humor, your interpersonal skills.

Bedside allows you to generate income fast once you are good, you have the technical skills,knowledge and are willing to work hard.

If you are choosing bedside nursing you must love people. Also so many new nurses want to work in acute care hospital settings at the beginning of their career to acquire experience in organizing and delivering patient care.

For my own experience I started as a staff nurse ,became Charge nurse, wound care nurse I loved and enjoyed every bit of it.Nursing is flexible,you can make your own schedule and work the shift that you want. Some hospitals are offering tuition reimbursement.,paid vacation , shift differential pay,family leaves, 401k, 457,463 etc. There are so many nurses that continued in this role (bedside)till they retire. You can move from bedside nursing to case manager, assistant manager, management, counseling, utilization review nurse,director. Some nurses will acquire more education move to a higher level or out of hospitals to a different company or even join politics and end up in Congress. Can you imagine Philomena N Okeke Congress woman from Menifee.(laughing)I know that it is not going to be me but you can be that Congress woman or man from bedside to Boardroom. Love your career and love bedside nursing.