Nephrology Nurse Job Description
The job of a nephrology nurse is to help patients who have kidney problems or kidney failure. A person may think that a nurse is just a nurse and a person becomes a nurse in a specialty by working in that particular department underneath professional nurses. However, a person can prepare him or herself to take on a role as a nurse in a particular specialty with a certification, such as a nephrology nurse certification. This guide will help an individual understand the entire process of how to become a nephrology nurse, how to obtain a nephrology nurse certification, and the nephrology nurse salary.
What Is a Nephrology Nurse?
If a person wonders what a nephrology nurse does or what do nephrology nurses do, it’s important to understand what is a nephrology nurse. A nephrology nurse is a nurse who specializes in caring for patients who have kidney problems. The nurse helps patients who have both acute and chronic kidney problems as well as patients in all stages of kidney failure. In many cases, a nephrology nurse may work closely with a diabetes nurse educator.
A nephrology nurse works with a specialist known as a nephrologist – who is a doctor who addresses kidney issues. This is just a generalization of the nephrology nurse job description.
What Does a Nephrology Nurse Do?
The next question a person may have about what does a nephrology nurse do is the nephrology nurse job description. First and foremost, the main nephrology nurse duties include working with the nephrologist to determine a care plan for a patient.
One of the more common aspects of a nephrology nurse job description includes performing dialysis. This particular nephrology nurse job description duty includes starting the treatment for the patient and monitoring the patient during the treatment. The nurse may administer other treatments as well to help with kidney problems.
As part of what does a nephrology nurse do, this type of nurse may have to read the test results from patients. The nurse will help work with patients to answer their questions and may have advice to give to a patient as part of the nephrology nurses job description.
How Do I Become a Nephrology Nurse?
If the nephrology nurse job description sounds appealing to a person, someone may wonder how do I become a nephrology nurse. The process regarding how to become a certified nephrology nurse will vary in length. However, the first step of the process is crucial to all nurses because it’s not part of how become a nephrology nurse so much as how to become a nurse in general.
Therefore, if a person wants to know how do I become a certified nephrology nurse and earn the average nephrology nurse salary, he or she will first need to complete either as associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree in nursing. Generally, this takes anywhere between two to four years total.
The next step to how do I become a certified nephrology nurse entails taking the NCLEX-RN to become a registered nurse. Then, a nurse must practice as a registered nurse.
How Long Does it Take to Become a Nephrology Nurse?
However, a nurse may take the nephrology nurse certification course to gain the necessary credentials, which is a crucial step in how to become a certified nephrology nurse. The nephrology nurse certificate will include a test at the end the person must pass to earn the nephrology nurse certification. Fortunately, this step of how to become a certified nephrology nurse doesn’t take nearly as long as a standard degree, and a person may take the certificate for a nephrology nurse program while he or she continues to work as a nurse.
A person should keep in mind that a person isn’t completely finished with the nephrology nurse certificate just because he or she took the test. The person must continue to renew the nephrology certification every four years to continue to practice as a nephrology nurse.
If a person wants to take it one step further, he or she may want to know how to become a nephrology nurse practitioner. For this particular career, a person will need to earn a master’s degree with a concentration on nephrology in order to meet the requirements of how to become a nephrology nurse practitioner.
How Much Can a Nephrology Nurse Make?
Another question a person might want to know before he or she earns his or her nephrology nurse certification is how much does a nephrology nurse make. Fortunately, the answer to the average nephrology nurse salary is higher than how much an average RN makes since a nephrology nurse has a specialist and undergoes a longer length of education.
Additionally, a person should understand the average nephrology nurse salary varies based on a person’s location. The average nephrology nursing salary for a nephrology nurse also varies based on where a person works. Some types of facilities are known to offer a higher nephrology nursing salary.
On average though, a certified nephrology nurse salary is around $74,018. A person can, however, earn a more by furthering his or her education since an average nurse practitioner nephrology salary is higher than a certified nephrology nurse salary. In fact, the average nurse practitioner nephrology salary is around $111,000 per year, and this salary also varies from place to place and facility type to facility type.
Related:
