Medical subdomains you can work in as a nurse. Part 1

You want to go to nursing school but you haven’t decided yet what you actually want to do for a living after you graduate? Let us introduce you to some of the subdomains you can choose from.

Intensive Care Nurse

• Participate in the preparation of the patient anesthesia, under the guidance of the ATI doctor.
• Check the equipment before use and report any incident to the ATI doctor.
• Supervise the patient and administer the intraoperative treatment, as directed by the doctor.
• Follow the post-operative evolution of the patient until his/her transfer to the next medical department.
• Record the daily clinical observations, such as the medical evolution, medication the patient took under your observation, therapeutic diagnosis or the results of the various laboratory analyzes.

Dental Assistant

• Assist the dentist to prepare dental materials and fillings. 
• Disinfect and sterilize all dental instruments
• Prepare injections for local anesthesia before the extractions.
• Prepare materials for taking teeth molds and transmit dental prints, x-rays, and other documents to the dental technician.
• Track patients’ medical records.
• Manage and schedule client’s appointment, answer phone calls, educate patients about their dental hygiene and make sure that the waiting room is always in order and clean.

Pharmacy Assistant

• Organize the workspace and specific activities required for the distribution of medicines and sanitary materials.
• Ensure storage shelves are properly stocked.
• Verify release documents are properly completed, contain the prescription and signature of the prescribing physician as well as the signature of the section head doctor.
• Recommend how to administer the medicines issued, according to the doctor’s prescription and provide additional information of possible adverse reactions.
• Keep the pharmacy equipment and instrumentation in good condition and respect the medical code of ethics and deontology.

This article is the first of a series about the medical subdomains in which a nurse can work. We will continue the series with several examples of sub-domains, with an emphasis on responsibilities.

Read the next parts:

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4