Learn about the technical skills that are required in nursing to execute duties effectively.
Nurses are at times referred to as medical assistants as they help the doctors in undertaking various medical roles. They are responsible for carry out the medical instructions by the doctor to the patients. They can be called to perform medical surgeries, administrative roles, supportive functions and many others. So being a nurse, it requires a lot from one both on technical skills and non-technical skills. Many times people focus on the non-technical stuff like better communication, decision-making abilities, and problem-solving activities among other soft skills. To perform your nursing roles effectively, you need to be all rounded and also have your technical aspect polished up. The technical skills that nurses should possess include equipment knowledge, checking for vital signs, performing emergency procedures and computer usage.
Equipment Knowledge
As a nurse, you will be required to administer drugs and undertake certain medical produces. This will require you to be good at handling medical equipment such as syringes, dialysis machines, ventilators and intensive care units machines among others. If you happen to be involved in the surgery, issues then you will be required to be familiar with surgical tools and how they are used and the general surgery procedures.
Checking for vital signs
Since in most cases you will be with the patients, you will be required to have great assessment skills for checking on their progress by monitoring the various signs and symptoms so that you can give the required medication and care.
Performing emergency procedures
You will in most cases find yourself handling emergency medical issues so as to stabilize the patient before the doctor takes charge. You need to be good in offering the first care medical procedures to a patient in the event of an emergency. You need to be able to stop bleeding, perform most minor surgery and take notes so as to brief the doctor.
Computer usage
Every job in this era requires some knowledge in information technology since most activities are now computerized. Nurses are not spared on this. As a nurse, you are required to have some basic computer knowledge as you will be required to write reports, carry out calculations, send emails, use the internet and even manage patient’s electronic database. All these are done on the computer making computer usage one of the key technical skills for nurses.