Critical Care Nurses
The occupation Critical Care Nurses covers people who provide specialized nursing care for patients in critical or coronary care units. O*NET rates it as considerable preparation, which usually means a bachelor’s degree plus a period of work experience. It leans on monitoring, speaking, and social perceptiveness. One core duty is to evaluate patients' vital signs or laboratory data to determine emergency intervention needs. The strongest interest signal is Social (5.6 of 7), then Investigative (5.0) and Conventional, which gives it the code SIC. The job can ask you to monitor patients for changes in status and indications of conditions such as sepsis or shock and institute appropriate interventions. People who want helping, teaching or caring for people usually fit better here than those who need creative work with room for original expression.
What they do
Provide specialized nursing care for patients in critical or coronary care units.
Main tasks
- Evaluate patients' vital signs or laboratory data to determine emergency intervention needs.
- Monitor patients for changes in status and indications of conditions such as sepsis or shock and institute appropriate interventions.
- Administer medications intravenously, by injection, orally, through gastric tubes, or by other methods.
- Monitor patients' fluid intake and output to detect emerging problems, such as fluid and electrolyte imbalances.
- Prioritize nursing care for assigned critically ill patients, based on assessment data or identified needs.
- Compile and analyze data obtained from monitoring or diagnostic tests.
Skills
- Monitoring
- Speaking
- Social Perceptiveness
- Service Orientation
- Reading Comprehension
- Critical Thinking
Who this career fits
May suit you if
- You get energy from helping other people move forward.
- You enjoy working out why something happens, not just what happened.
- You are ready to spend around four years on a degree, then build experience.
- You are comfortable relying on monitoring and speaking.
May not suit you if
- You find a full day of dealing with people draining.
- You need creative expression to be a big part of your day. Artistic rates 1.7 out of 7 here.
- You want to avoid a four-year degree or its equivalent.
Interest profile
O*NET rates each occupation from 1 to 7 on six interest types. The code SIC takes the three highest, and Social comes first here.
Preparation
Considerable preparation. Most jobs here ask for a bachelor’s degree, and employers usually expect a few years of related experience as well.
Most-reported requirement in the O*NET survey: Bachelor's Degree. This reflects what workers reported most often and is not a legal minimum. Licensing rules can differ by state or industry, so confirm what applies where you plan to work.
Also called
- Certified Critical Care Nurse
- Critical Care Nurse Practitioner
- Critical Care Registered Nurse (CCRN)
- ICU Critical Care NP (Intensive Care Unit Critical Care Nurse Practitioner)
- ICU Nurse (Intensive Care Unit Nurse)
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This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.