Nurses are on the front lines of the battle to save lives. Their knowledge and skills you need to become a nurse can mean the difference between survival and death. That’s why, before all of Concordia Texas’s other goals, there is the simple, central purpose of graduating the very best nurses that we possibly can.
In pursuit of that excellence, we admit the best and the brightest nursing students to our nursing program through our traditional 4-year track and our Accelerated BSN track. However, for prospective nurses who want to make a career change quickly, the ABSN track is the ideal solution, allowing you to graduate in as few as 16 months.
However, your decision to become a nurse should be based on more than a paycheck; you have to be dedicated and passionate. That’s because nursing goes above and beyond the technicalities of measuring and administering medicine. Some of the skills you need to become a nurse can be taught, but others are born with. So, do you have what it takes to become a Concordia nurse?
8 Essential Skills of Great Nurses
You may already know that you’re the perfect fit for the nursing profession. Across the board, from maternity to the intensive care unit (ICU), nurses share a few common skills and traits that naturally drive them to be excellent caretakers.
Concordia University Texas’s ABSN track can help you further develop these skills needed to become a nurse, which include:
1. Resourcefulness
Bedside patient care – and the illnesses that put patients in the hospital – is a complex process, involving both the alleviation of pain and the treatment of the root disease. You will discover through your career how much little adjustments and learned tricks will help you provide better care. Chances are, in your current job, you’ve acquired a special set of tips and tricks that help you do your job that much better.
2. Creative Problem Solving
Whether you’ve learned to fix the printer with a barbecue skewer or tightened a screw in your desk chair with a dime, you probably already have the kind of creative problem solving it takes to be a nurse. Every patient will present a unique challenge to you, and you have to be able to approach each one with your full problem solving and creativity skills ready.
3. Intuition
You know what people are going to say before they say it. You can anticipate needs of others before they ask. You can keep track of unique patterns and stay ahead of your work. This kind of professional intuition is what separates great nurses from life-changing nurses, and will serve you well for the rest of your nursing career.
4. Self-Discipline
The most successful nursing students are highly self-disciplined and make a priority out of spending regular, focused time on their coursework and reviewing. This carries over into successful professional nursing, as our students refuse to cut corners or compromise their patients’ care, down to the last dressing change five minutes before a shift ends.
5. Good Assessment Abilities
Can you look at a problem, immediately pick it apart and solve the issue? If the answer is yes, then you have good assessment skills. Sometimes patients are not in a position to give you a detailed description of their problem. You have to figure out the issue with a minimal amount of questions. Your attention to detail will help piece together what could be the cause of the patient’s pain. Good assessment skills separate the superior nurses from the average.
6. Communication
Are you a nosey person? Are you good at getting people to speak to you about personal issues? This is a great skill to have especially when it comes to dealing with a patient. There will be patients who are more than able to answer questions, if the right ones are asked. Don’t be afraid to re-phrase questions and keep digging until you find the source of the issue that landed them in the hospital.
7. Compassion
When you turn on the television and see someone’s sad story, you may be tempted to imagine yourself in that person’s shoes. You have to do that as a nurse. It goes beyond a proper IV or delivering medicine. You treat patients the way you would want to be treated. It’s about more than just an illness or injury, it’s about helping and healing one’s whole being – mind, body and spirit.
8. Time Management
Are you a task master? Can you make the most of 24 hours in a day? Nurses juggle multiple patients during a shift. Each patient has different needs which can range from medicine to bathing. Nurses can’t be late for any of it. Prioritizing care and managing every minute is the only way to ensure proper care and can make a critical difference.
These are not just the skills you need to become a nurse, but all of them are essential to becoming a successful nursing student at Concordia, especially in our ABSN track.
Choosing Nursing at CTX
To practice nursing fully, one thing is key; knowledge. The pursuit of knowledge is key for Concordia’s accelerated nursing students. Concordia University Texas’s Accelerated BSN track helps you advance your skills, and even discover some you didn’t even know you had. Your instructors are dedicated to helping you develop those skills so you are prepared you to take the NCLEX exam for licensure. Concordia’s staff and faculty will support every step of your journey. Many of your faculty will be able to tell you about their own journey into nursing and the skills they’ve developed that have made them even more successful.
If you’re ready to enhance your skills and become a Concordia nurse, contact an admissions counselor to find out how to begin.