Care Points – An Ultimate resource for In-depth Health Information and articles

Finding great joy in helping others and the love of challenge are two of the key ingredients to becoming a nursing assistant. If you find yourself bored with cookie-cutter jobs that offer the same exact things day in and day out, then becoming a nursing assistant could be the job for you. With the needs and personalities of each patient varying, you can rest assured that it isn’t your ordinary day job.

Lets face it, most of us have at some point or another heard of nursing assistants but don’t exactly know what nursing assistant duties are aside from the basics of helping a patient get dressed if required, bathing the patient either by sponge bathing them in bed, or helping them to their shower or bath and bathing them there. It could also involve sometimes feeding the patient if they are unable to feed themselves but nursing assistant duties go far beyond the basics and are important in providing key information for both the registered nurse and the doctor.

Great personal and communication skills are imperative to becoming a nursing assistant.  While attending to your daily duties, you are not only helping the patient with their various needs, you are also remembering to chart things such as food and liquids consumed so that the doctors and registered nurses can refer to it at a later time. Charting vital signs, which can be done while changing the patients clothing, or helping them into their wheel chair are also valuable nursing assistant duties which are key to the optimal health of your patients.

Becoming a nursing assistant means having a keen eye for detail, and being able to observe and make notations for the persons behavior throughout the day and also their reactions and behaviors in regards to certain tasks that you may help them perform or perform for them, such as putting on make-up, or helping them to the toilet.

If your passion in life is helping another and can easily adapt to changing situations and have a great eye for detail, then this can be a long rewarding career for you. Your patients and colleagues will appreciate your dedication to providing the best possible care for those you’ve been blessed to serve, and the reward is in knowing you’ve done your very best in providing them everything they need.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a home health nurse to the rescue! If you love nursing but prefer an at-home setting to the hospital, a home health nurse may be the perfect career for you.

Many people who have a regular home health nurse who comes into their home on a regular basis may look at them as the “Superwoman” of the nursing field, offering them quality, personal care within the confines of their own home.

Home Health Nursing is a fast growing profession that is perfect for the professional nurse who prefers to work independently, and who possess great personal, clinical and communication skills. Home health nurses should be able to recognize any complications with existing conditions, plus any oncoming conditions and be prepared to alert the patients’ doctor if treatment is needed.

For those nurses who find themselves loving a classroom environment and both the medical field, finding that they can do both by becoming a Public Health nurse is often the perfect solution to their dilema.

The goal of a Public Health nurse is to identify the needs of a particular community and help them prevent potential health issues from becoming issues in their particular community, and this is done generally through classes and lectures in both the workplace and in the targeted community.

The public health nurse is often the voice of various health officials such as health educators, physicians, and nutritionists just to name a few. She works closely with these and other health officials so she can stand in the front lines reaching out to schools, and the residents of each community to educate them on prevention of various diseases and disabilities within the community itself.

If the home health nurse is considered the superwoman of the home health setting, the public health nurse is definitely the superwoman and voice of health in the community, both of which offering different, yet invaluable roles to the communities in which they serve.

While home health nurses require no additional certifications aside from their normal nurse licensing procedures, the public health nurse are required to have a bachelors of science degree in nursing with a public health nursing certificate. Both are different but equally rewarding nursing careers.