Becoming a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN), you have a chance to work firsthand with people who really need help and who can make an actual change in their lives with your intervention. These include those who are invalid, injured, severely sick or convalescent, as they need the constant care and attention of a practiced hand that can make sure that they go through life as being comfortable as possible with their disease.
There are many types of care that an LVN can provide for patients. This includes regular bedside care, along with keeping up with a patient's vital signs which include monitoring their weight, height, blood pressure, temperature, respiration and pulse.
Duties of a LVN
Licensed nurses also have the authority to admonish and give injections, along with supervise catheters, bandage and clean wounds, give massages and alcohol rubs along with administering enemas. They have to help immobile patients get dressed, bathe, and take care of other issues in regards to basic personal hygiene, along with taking care of their diet, eating and exercise. LVNs that have a lot of experience can even be hired in a supervisory capacity to oversee the work of other nursing aides.
Vocational nurses have the responsibility of collecting samples for laboratory testing as a part of their job description; while some even have the ability to carry out routine laboratory tests which vocational nurses learn as a part of their studies. Vocational nurses know how to clean and supervise complex medical equipment and learn enough on the job to help physicians perform basic tests and procedures for patients. Vocational nurses are also authorized to deliver, look after and feed new born babies.
A career in nursing requires the utmost responsibility as the job has a lot to do with supervision. It is an LVN's job to monitor the patients under their care and report every step of their treatment to their doctors, which include adverse reactions to medicine, any sudden changes in their condition along with their constant condition and state of mind.
LVNs are well versed with the knowledge on how to complete all of the medical forms which are a necessary prerequisite prior to any form of treatment in a medical institution. These include any insurance forms, pre authorizations and referrals that the patient might be required to fill to determine the best route for treatment in a patient's interest.
Working in Many Different Care Giving Settings
Vocational nurses have the option of working in a generalized field of healthcare or specializing in a particular healthcare setting such as a rehabilitation center, a nursing home or a doctor's office. Vocational nurses who work in nursing homes often end up as home nurses as well, when they take care of an individual patient full time. Their responsibilities include taking care of their patient's basic needs, chalk up their care plans and supervise any other medical technicians working around them.
If working in a doctor's office, it is often the Vocational nurse's job to make appointments for patients, maintain their records and double as clerks when the need presents itself. LVNs working in the home care sector also prepare meals if they wish and delegate simple nursing tasks to other family members after teaching them how to do it properly.
In some regions, licensed vocational nurses can also start IV fluids, take care of patients on life support machines and give prescription medicines to those who need them.
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