Description and Role of a Wound Care Nurse

Do you want to help patients that are wounded? As a wound care nurse, you'd be doing just that. In this field, you are required to address and treat a variety of wounds, surgical incisions and pressure sores. Your job is to prevent or treat infections that take place within the wound. The wounds that you are caring for can be caused by stomas, injury or infection. Stomas are openings that are created for colostomy bags and feeding tubes.

Training

If wound care nursing sounds like a field that you would like to get into, you will have to go to school for four years to obtain a bachelor's degree in nursing. You will have to first become a registered nurse, then obtain additional training in a specialized field. You will have to complete continuing education units and renew you certificate every five years.



Tasks

Some of the tasks of a wound care nurse includes assessing the skin of patients to prevent the onset of pressure ulcers. You may also have to give medication salves and give other types of treatments for wounds patients have. You will also have to teach the patients you work with about caring for the wounds themselves.

Work Settings

In the field of wound care nursing, you will be able to work in different types of settings including clinics, physicians' offices, hospitals and special wound care facilities. You will also be able to help care for patients that are wounded, within their homes.

Compensation

With a bachelor's degree, a wound care nurse can make around $56,000 annually. Then those that have a master's degree can make an annual salary around $85,000.

Job Opportunities

There is a bigger need for nurses that offer preventive care for wounds, especially since Medicare stopped offering coverage for preventable pressure ulcers in 2008.