Can an LPN-RN become a Correctional Nurse?
Posted On February 12,2018
If you are considering enrolling in an LPN-RN program to obtain your RN, you should consider the exciting world of correctional nursing to start your nursing career.
Many times, you can get hired at a correctional facility as an LPN while still in school, and then take on a more senior level responsibilites once you graduate with your RN and pass boards.
Correctional Nurse Responsibilities
As an RN or LPN nurse at a correctional facility, you will have numerous responsibilities that include:
Care coordination
There are a lot of security constraints that need to be navigated and overcome in a correctional facility, which are put in place to prevent any incidents and to keep correctional employees safe.
As a correctional nurse, you’ll be responsible for coordinating the appropriate care for incarcerated patients, which includes getting around certain security constraints that may prevent them from getting the care that they need; for example, restricted movement.
Emergency care
When an incarcerated patient is injured or is ill and they require immediate treatment, you will need to be able to treat them.
As a correctional nurse, it will be your responsibility to provide immediate medical treatment as well as to determine whether the illness or injury is life-threatening.
If it is life-threatening, then you will help stabilize the patient for transport to an emergency room.
Health education
There are many inmates who will have entered the correctional facility with little knowledge of how to live a healthy lifestyle or how to manage certain health conditions that they might have.
This is often because they are from areas that may have had limited healthcare access. Correctional nurses need to educate the inmates and help promote healthy lifestyle choices.
Patient advocacy
The main concern of a correctional institution is to keep the facility safe and secure.
These concerns often override those of the individual inmates’ healthcare needs.
As a correctional nurse, you will be responsible for collaborating with officers and negotiating the facility’s security system in order to meet the health needs of each inmate.
In this regard, you will be representing your inmate patients and be their voice in their healthcare plan.
Primary care
You’ll be dealing with patients who need basic healthcare attention.
You will determine what kind of care the patient is in need of in addition to coordinating ambulatory care provision within the correctional facility.
These are five responsibilities that you will have as a correctional nurse.
Just keep in mind that many correctional facilities will not only require either a license or degree, but also some basic nursing experience as well.
For information about our LPN-RN program and how you can apply, be sure to contact us at ourAthena Career Academy today.
