Ophthalmology Nurse, Ophthalmology Nursing Schools, Training, Education, Jobs, and Careers

What is an Ophthalmology Nurse?
In the United States, nursing education includes vision loss on an individual and how the person is able to cope with this disability. However, the nurse receives no formal specialty education to prepare her for ophthalmic nursing. Much depends upon how self-motivated the nurse is and whether she can find some mentors to assist her.

In the past, nurses took care of ophthalmic patients in the hospital along with all other different kinds of patients. Now most eye patients are outpatients. Even when working in the operating room a surgical nurse may take care of several specialty patients, not just those dealing with eye surgery.

Therefore, if you are already a registered nurse, and you wish to pursue a career in ophthalmology, what should you do?

Following are some suggestions that have been put forth by members of the "American Society of Ophthalmic Registered Nurses" both past and present:

• Update your resume - List all of your nursing strengths and tell how your medical background and experience will benefit an ophthalmic practice. Here may be some of your strengths:

• You are a caring individual

• Good organizational skills

• Able to prioritize and assess situations

• Able to teach and problem-solve

• Pays attention to detail and processes

• Looks for other resources

• Provides comfort for patients

• Her patient keeps all of the nurse's attention

• May have skills from other nursing jobs that may transfer to being an ophthalmic nurse such as phlebotomy care, emergency care, intravenous therapy and more

• Low absentee record

• Willingness to learn and grow

Next, if you are really ready to pursue a job as an ophthalmology nurse, you should contact ophthalmology doctors who may work in the hospital or other doctors of ophthalmology who may have private practices. You could show your resume directly to the doctor.

If you are enquiring about wanting to apply for a job in a particular practice, ask to speak to the clinical nurse or the office manager. You should request an outline of the nurse's job description.

Begin self-study - "American Society of Ophthalmic Registered Nurses" has a good core curriculum to study. This guide has a variety of ophthalmic diseases as well as ophthalmic information you should be familiar with if you are going to be an ophthalmology nurse.

Apply for a job in an ambulatory surgery center; then ask that you be assigned strictly to the ophthalmology patients. Read over the charts, converse with the patients and find out everything you can about their conditions.

Apply for an ophthalmology nurse position in the unit of the hospital that admits either eye trauma or patients that have corneal ulcers. This could possibly be in the Emergency Room.

Do some networking with other doctors and nurses. Tell them you are interested in changing jobs and really have the desire to work with ophthalmic patients. Find out if there are any pertinent places you could post your resume.

If you have already had managerial practice, then perhaps you could manage a practice somewhere.

Are you an advanced practice nurse? Perhaps you could partner with a doctor of ophthalmology doing preoperative assessments. Some ophthalmology nurses own a business of their own doing postoperative assessments.

Ophthalmology Nurse Salary:
Ophthalmic nurses make excellent income. The average pay nationally is $90,000 per year. You ability to make more will increase as you progress in your career.

Ophthalmology Nursing School:
As stated above, there’s no special training to become an ophthalmic nurse. The best way to approach your education is to take some advanced nursing classes. These classes should emphasize ophthalmology.

There aren’t many schools that offer advanced nursing courses. As always, we have you covered. You need to visit the nursing degree website. Follow this link to go there now. While there, request for the free information.

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