What Is a Substance Abuse Nurse?

What Is a Substance Abuse Nurse?

Advanced Nursing 2021

A substance abuse nurse, sometimes referred to as an addiction nurse, specializes in the treatment of patients addicted to drugs, alcohol or other substances. Substance abuse nurses are trained in mental health in addition to general medicine. They provide pain management, education for patients and caregivers about the dangers of substance abuse and emotional support to patients in crisis.

Becoming a Substance Abuse Nurse

As with other nursing careers, the first step in becoming a substance abuse nurse is to complete an Associate's Degree in Nursing or Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree to gain a general nursing education. For aspiring addiction nurses, elective courses in mental health will be particularly important. Once a nurse has completed schooling, they must pass the NCLEX-RN exam. From there, an RN may begin work as a substance abuse nurse. Once a nurse has completed 2,000 hours of professional nursing experience in the substance abuse sector and 30 hours of continuing education related to addictions nursing within the last three years, he or she may sit for the Certified Addictions Registered Nurse (CARN) certification exam offered by the International Nurses Society on Addictions. While not required for all substance abuse nursing positions, the CARN certification communicates a nurse's commitment to substance abuse nursing to prospective employers.

A typical job posting for a substance abuse nurse position would likely include the following qualifications, among others specific to the type of employer and location:

• ADN or BSN degree and valid RN license
• Ability to make safe judgment calls in patient care
• Strong communication skills for educating patients and their families about the dangers of substance abuse and their treatment options
• Proficiency in computer programs and data entry for maintaining patient records
• Experience in mental health and/or addiction preferred
• Caring and professional demeanor with compassion for patients struggling with addiction

What Are the Education Requirements for Substance Abuse Nurses?

Substance abuse nurses are generally required to have completed an ADN or BSN degree and to hold a valid RN license in the state in which they plan to practice. A higher nursing degree is usually not required, but elective courses in mental health and addiction are critical for nurses interested in pursuing a career in substance abuse nursing.

Are Any Certifications or Credentials Needed?

While not required for most substance abuse nursing positions, RNs who wish to specialize in addiction nursing may consider becoming a Certified Addiction Registered Nurse. The International Nurses Society on Addictions sponsors this exam, which is open to RNs who have completed 2,000 hours of professional experience in substance abuse nursing and 30 hours of continuing education related to addictions nursing within the last three years. This certification offers RNs a competitive edge when seeking employment or advancement as a substance abuse nurse.

Where Do Substance Abuse Nurses Work?

Substance abuse nurses work with patients and their families in a variety of settings, including:

1. Mental health clinics
2. Psychiatric wards in hospitals
3. Inpatient or outpatient substance abuse treatment facilities

What Does a Substance Abuse Nurse Do?

A substance abuse nurse provides direct patient care to individuals struggling with substance abuse and addiction. They assist physicians in developing treatment plans, perform patient assessments, monitor a patient's progress and administer medications and pain management services. An important aspect of substance abuse nursing is mental health and emotional support services. Substance abuse nurses often conduct mental health screenings and provide emotional support for patients and their families during treatment. They also educate patients and their loved ones about the dangers of substance abuse and provide resources and information about the various treatment options for addiction. 

For More details about Advanced Nursing 2021,visit: https://nursing.nursingmeetings.com/

Clinical Differences between your BSN and MSN – Guest Post

Clinical Differences between your BSN and MSN – Guest Post

Advanced Nursing 2021, Tokyo, Japan

Let’s start out on a positive note, which is rare for me because my sense of humor is dark and drier than the saltines locked up by Dietary because the nurses were eating too many.  I love nurse practitioners.  They are adaptable, dependable, and their education opens up a world of possibilities and knowledge that doesn’t exist at the BSN level.  Like CRNAs, the skill and finesse they learn in school elevates caring to an art form.  Sometimes it’s a lot of fun! But, on the healthcare hierarchy totem pole, graduate students are still a bug trapped underneath the pole.  Clinical sites evaluate them much more closely and lord more power over them than in nursing school.  When it came to the hands-on, manage-the-patient-as-if-you-were-a-nurse part of nursing clinicals, I was about as skilled as this guy.

It took a long time for anyone to notice because I had a 4.0 and could answer any question thrown at me.  With an MSN, the bar is much higher.  You need to start performing on Day One rather than blunder through a three month orientation trying not to kill anyone at your first job.  The closer scrutiny on clinical results is necessary and rewarding, but there are two major ironies for CRNA and NP students to accept.  There are a lot of fabulous things too, but those aren’t as interesting to write about.  The first irony is that you are paying money to make other people money–sometimes while being treated poorly.  An example is the anesthesiologist resident being supervised remotely while sedating for colonoscopies, except that he makes enough to buy Ramen while the nurse anesthesia student does not.  The second is that although you occasionally generate the same level of notice and respect that Housekeeping does, whether your clinicals are at a small office or a large hospital, some of your preceptors will be intensively interested in your personal life.

Watch out for bullying

Identifying psychotic preceptors is an invaluable tool as a graduate student.  My site on bullying and corporate wellness can help with some of this.  Who can you trust?  Programs with multiple clinical sites have a liaison between the school and the program, although that doesn’t automatically mean anything.  Find out from students who have been to that clinical site before, although they may be more loyal to advance practice nurses at an institution than they will be to you.  Seniors may be after a job or desperately want to please someone at the site with juicy information about a new student.  At this point, you may suspect I’m a suspicious sourpuss.  I’m actually embarrassingly gullible and tend to see the best in people rather than their glaring faults, which is why advice like this was so helpful for me.  And really, you should be treating everyone as well as you can.  Not two-faced or disingenuous, but the way you want to be treated.  The simpler you can keep your clinical relationships, the more you can concentrate on doing well clinically instead of the petty drama that some people live for.  I know it doesn’t sound like it, but I found clinicals tremendously more fun and interesting the second time around.

Trying to understand expectations between preceptors

Once you do find trustworthy preceptors that have your best, long-term interests in mind and really want to help, try new things and work on your clinical weaknesses with them.  As a new student, skills like arterial and central line placement or intubating with a new type of blade or equipment are good examples.  Even discovering your deficits may seem bewildering.  One preceptor will compliment you on your critical thinking and the next may berate you for the exact same thought process.  Understand that many of the brilliant preceptors who ask you highly specialized and difficult questions only have a handful of them that are meant to stump you, unless they’ve been reading textbooks between patients.  Often there’s a strong correlation between a fixation with antibiotics or airway or amiodarone dosing and a terrible mistake they once made.  Even if an outcome is one in a million, if it happens to your patient, you’ll pay special attention to it in every subsequent case until you retire (or receive adequate therapy).

Prioritize your emotional wellbeing

As a last side note, would extensive counseling help you survive and perhaps even thrive in graduate school?  The answer is yes.  Of course, if you had the time and money for counseling during school, you probably wouldn’t really need it.  Similar to training your brain how to study, resilience is one of the most important skills you should master.  This is quite different than stubbornness, which can be evidenced clinically as trying that spinal for a sixth time instead of just changing your inflexible plan.  In the future, we will talk much more about emotional help on FreshNP.com and how to build a healthy, balanced support system that doesn’t suck or suck your loved ones dry.  Although it helps to stay close to home instead of leaving everyone you know for that perfect school hundreds of miles away, I’ve been asked if it’s better to be a nurse at a facility before becoming a nurse practitioner or anesthesia student.  Can you step out of the shadow of your old job?  An incompetent student will still have major problems six months into a program, even if everyone loves her. 

What do you think? How do your NP clinicals compare to nursing school, or how do you expect them to differ? 

For More About Advanced Nursing 2021, visit: https://nursing.nursingmeetings.com/

5 Tips to Survive Nursing School

5 Tips to Survive Nursing School

Advanced Nursing 2021, Tokyo, Japan

The road to qualifying as a nurse is not an easy one. You could spend as little as one year at nursing school or as long as eight, depending on the qualification you’re aiming for. Either way, nursing school is not for the faint-hearted, and it can seem like a daily battle.

You’ll likely need to put in more study hours than other students, meaning less time for extracurricular activities or work. Budgeting can be tough for student nurses as they often have many extra costs but less funds. These include buying nursing scrubs, , but also have less time to take up paid work than other students. Nursing school can also be an emotional rollercoaster as you’ll no doubt see some upsetting scenes on your clinical experiences. You’ll have to quickly develop a strong stomach and thick skin while remaining empathetic with your patients but also have less time to take up paid work than other students. Nursing school can also be an emotional rollercoaster as you’ll no doubt see some upsetting scenes on your clinical experiences. You’ll have to quickly develop a strong stomach and thick skin while remaining empathetic with your patients.

Whether you’ve just enrolled or you’re part-way through your course and finding it challenging, we’ve put together our five top tips for surviving nursing school.

1.      5 Tips to survive Nursing School Get Organized

It can be tempting to ditch the books for an evening with friends, but skipping study will just set you back and cause stress. Student nurses have a lot more to juggle than other students, with a high number of study hours and clinical experiences to complete successfully.

Make study part of your daily routine by creating a timetable for the week and scheduling the same time each day to hit the books. Set a clear purpose for your study and check tasks off as you complete them. This will give you a sense of achievement and will motivate you to keep going. Avoid setting huge targets which will take months to achieve as you’re likely to get demoralized and give up. It’s a good idea to set new goals at the start of each semester. Do you want to improve your grades in a particular class? Are you determined to master a specific skill in your clinical placements? Don’t forget to make your goals SMART — Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.

Keep your notes organized and review them after each class. Whether you use a laptop or a paper and pen, be sure to store your files in a way that makes it easy for you to access the information you need at a later date — your future you will thank the past you at exam prep time!

2.      5 Tips to survive Nursing School Take Care of Yourself

It can be easy to drown yourself in study, classes, clinical experiences, and research. Nursing school requires a lot of hard work and commitment, but it’s important to make time to care for your health and wellbeing. If you’re functioning on a few hours sleep because you were up late cramming, your performance will be off and ultimately could risk someone’s life. Equally, if you’ve skipped meals, had no exercise and your stress levels are sky high, you’ll be of no use to anyone.

Sign up to the gym or work a daily run into your schedule. Getting out in the fresh air will clear your mind and re-energize you for study. There will be plenty of extracurricular activities to choose from at nursing school, from sports to theatre. Get active — physically, and socially. Taking time away from the books will make you more effective when it is time to study.

Don’t skip meals. If time and dollars are tight, you might think missing out on lunch is a good way to save on both. Your brain won’t function at its best if your body isn’t well nourished. When you’re on clinical experience in a healthcare setting, you’ll likely be on your feet for long periods, and your brain will be working overtime to take in all the new information. It’s crucial to keep yourself well-nourished if you want to perform at your best.

3.      5 Tips to survive Nursing School Plan Ahead for Clinicals

A core element of your program will be clinical experiences. You will spend time in a healthcare setting and will start to learn the practical skills you’ll need as a nurse in supervised learning sessions. Clinical experience is your opportunity to put what you learn in the classroom into practice and to gain real-world experience of nursing.

Get the most out of your clinical experiences by planning well ahead. Find out where you will be placed and do some research on the organization. What kind of medicine will you be involved in? Will you be in a Trauma 1 center, or have you been placed on an end-of-life ward? Read around the area of medicine that is most relevant. Talk to other nursing students who have completed their clinical experience at the same setting and gain insight into what to expect. The more prepared you are, the more you will learn. Don’t be afraid to take notes and a list of questions with you. The Medical staff you work with will appreciate the preparation you have put in.

Plan for the practical and logistical aspects of attending your clinical experience too. Where is it? How do you get there? Is there parking? What do they require you to wear? Is it necessary to buy scrubs and must they be a certain color?

4.      5 Tips to survive Nursing School Stock up on the Essentials

A few simple pieces of equipment will make your life as a student nurse much easier and more enjoyable. You will likely need some pieces of medical uniform, such as nursing scrubs and nurses shoes. Find out from your college what the requirements are. Each clinical setting may have their own rules, so don’t forget to check with them too. A pair of comfortable nursing shoes can be a lifesaver when you’re on your feet all day! 

Invest in a good backpack which can take the weight of your books. Backpacks are better than totes as they tend to be stronger, more comfortable to carry, and they have multiple pockets and compartments which are useful for storing all your essentials. Make sure there’s space for your laptop or notebook, stationery, personal items such as tissues and a hairbrush, snacks and a water bottle.

Treat yourself to a new watch. Many of us rely on our cell phones to tell the time, but it may not be appropriate either in class or in a clinical setting to keep whipping out your phone. If you’re going to be a perfectly organized student, you’ll need to keep an eye on the time, and a watch is the most professional way to do so.

5.      5 Tips to survive Nursing School Ask Questions!

When are learning something new, it can be daunting to risk looking dumb by asking a “stupid” question. The chances are, if you’re prepared and well-organized, your query will not be seen as stupid by your peers, your professors, or the professionals in a clinical setting. Remember, they all had to learn too, and there’s a good chance many other students have asked the same question before. You’re here to learn. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to do so by being too afraid to ask a question.

It can be helpful to write down questions you want to ask ahead of time — especially if you’ve researched the organization you will be attending for your next clinical experience. Of course, this is not always possible. So, if you have a spontaneous question, take a moment to think it through before you ask it. If you still want to ask the question after a brief moment of reflection, it’s probably worth asking!

Stick with It — 5 Tips to survive Nursing School You Won’t Regret It.

Nursing school is tough. It can be financially difficult, emotionally draining, labor-intensive, and intellectually challenging. But the goals we find hardest to achieve are also the most rewarding. Imagine yourself walking across the stage at graduation, your head filled with all the knowledge you are now learning. As a qualified nurse, you’ll be helping to save lives and supporting people through some of their most difficult experiences. Nursing is an incredibly rewarding career. If you are ambitious and committed to a career in nursing, stick with it — you won’t regret it.

For more details about Advanced Nursing 2021, Visit: https://nursing.nursingmeetings.com/

Nurse Managers urged to be active in promoting environmental sustainability

Nurse Managers urged to be active in promoting environmental sustainability

Advanced Nursing 2021, Tokyo, Japan

The RCN is lobbying healthcare providers to adopt strategies on environmental sustainability.

v  The NHS is the largest public-sector contributor to climate change in Europe.

v  A resolution passed by RCN congress requires the college to lobby healthcare providers.

v  Healthcare providers are urged to develop sustainable policies and raise awareness of climate change

Nursing managers need to be aware of sustainability and think about what it may mean in their workplaces, the RCN says as it addresses climate change.

Gwen Vardigans speaking at RCN Congress. The RCN wants nurses to lobby healthcare providers for strategies on environmental sustainability and raise awareness of climate change.

The college is taking action following a debate at its annual congress, in May, in which nurses spoke passionately about the need for it to lead on climate change.

Members passed a resolution putting the issue on the organization’s agenda for future action.

The congress resolution requires the college to lobby healthcare providers to develop environmentally sustainable policies and strategies, and to raise awareness of climate change.

During the debate Gwen Vardigans, from North Yorkshire, cited environmental protests by schoolchildren inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, protests in London by the Extinction Rebellion movement and extreme weather events, as well as warnings from scientists and the World Health Organization.

She said action was critical and suggested that RCN representatives could become involved in their organizations, encouraging people to reduce waste, recycle and help reduce their carbon footprint.

‘Climate change is the biggest threat of our lives,’ Ms Vardigans told fellow nurses.

‘Sustainability is going to be with us for many years to come, and nurses are going to be at the center of managing and supporting it’

RCN sustainability lead Rose Gallagher says that despite the many kinds of healthcare setting and nurses in the UK, there are several things that all nursing managers can do on climate change.

Nurses urged to learn about the sustainable development

She says: ‘The most important thing for managers is to be aware of the increasing priority of sustainability and think about what that might mean in your workplace.’

Ms Gallagher says work on sustainability has been growing for several years and urges nurses to familiarise themselves with the Sustainable Development Unit, which is funded by and accountable to NHS England and Public Health England.

Its job is to ensure that the health and care system fulfils its potential as a leading sustainable and low-carbon service.

‘Sustainability is going to be with us for many years to come, and nurses are going to be at the centre of managing and supporting it, and bringing the public with us,’ says Ms Gallagher.

For more details about Advanced Nursing 2021, Visit: https://nursing.nursingmeetings.com/

Four Interesting Facts about Registered Nurses Every Nursing Student Should Know

 

Four Interesting Facts about Registered Nurses Every Nursing Student Should Know

Advanced Nursing 2021 at Tokyo, Japan on August 16-17,2021

There's no chance you haven't interacted with a nurse in your entire lifetime. Have you ever visited a hospital? Have you ever got home care because of an accident or illness? If not, once in a while, you must have surely visited at least one medical clinic or you must have called a health care hotline.

Meanwhile, the following three designations are the most common designations you must have heard of- Registered Nurse (RN), A Nurse Practitioner (NP) or a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN).

Down here, we are going to reveal some interesting facts about registered nurses that every nursing student should know.

Fact #1: Registered nurses may have a degree of 2-8 years.

Two years of study and a registered nurse is not only graduate, but also able to support her/his family. Further, once you get into the profession, you can study more, and sometimes, the hospital might be financing your studies too.

Fact #2: Many make more money than you'll ever know.

For a fact, most of the registered nurses earn an average of $20-$38 dollars an hour. Can you imagine? The fact does not end here. There are very rare chances a registered nurse earns less than that. On the other hand, the chances of a nurse to earn more money than that are common.

Fact #3: Registered Nurses can also be doctors.

Have you heard of nursing instructors? Well, any registered nurse can get a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) or a Doctorate in Nursing practice (DNP). A nurse can be a doctor.

Fact #4: Nurses are in demand everywhere

In Canada, there are 360,000 of nurses regulated to work. Undoubtedly, there's no chance you haven't met one. Do you know the reason? The more the settings, the more is the need of a nurse.

These days, a nurse can choose over not seeing a blood ever or enjoying the little adrenaline rush by opting to become a flight nurse. Do you want to take care of elderly people? You can become a Geriatric Nurse. There's a wide range of nursing courses a nurse can choose from.

For participating Advanced Nursing 2021 at Tokyo, Japan, visit: https://nursing.nursingmeetings.com/