Critical care nurses often work in the ICU, treating the most at-risk patients. They assess patients, providing basic care, including dressing wounds, placing IVs and ordering diagnostic tests. To become an ICU nurse, you must earn a BSN, pass the NCLEX, gain nursing experience and possibly earn critical care certifications.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more exciting and impactful career than critical care nursing. This specialty keeps you active and engaged, caring for high-risk patients daily. Critical care nursing is a career path worth considering if you like a challenge and want to make a real difference in people’s lives.
Through the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program at Concordia University, St. Paul, you can earn a nursing degree in as few as 16 months. The Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) you earn is the foundation for a career in critical care nursing.
To help inform your decision about this career path, we’ll outline the four steps on how to become a critical care registered nurse (RN). But first, what does a critical care nurse do?
What Is a Critical Care Nurse?
A critical care nurse works with the most at-risk patients in the hospital. These patients often have unstable conditions, have experienced severe trauma or have recently undergone surgery. They also frequently have complex health issues that require multi-tier treatments and interdisciplinary care.
Critical care nurses typically work in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where patients require the most immediate care, but they may also choose to work in a step-down unit. Step-down units are an intermediate space for patients who are not stable enough for a general unit.
Nurses in a critical care unit usually only treat a few critically ill patients at a time to provide each patient with focused care. Critical care patients are commonly sedated, and they may be receiving complex care such as multiple intravenous infusions to maintain perfusion and prevent pain, ventilators for oxygenation, and dialysis to maintain electrolyte balance. Patients and their families often feel vulnerable and scared, so empathy, excellent assessment and clinical reasoning skills, and good communication are especially important for critical care nurses.
What Does a Critical Care Nurse Do?
Critical care RNs work alongside doctors and other members of the patient care team to assess, treat, and monitor patients’ conditions while providing essential care.
Critical care nurses are required to help implement complex treatment plans, such as intubation or placing multiple IV drips. Hence, they need more extensive knowledge, equipment and charting skills than the registered nurses working in less acute settings.
While no two days will look exactly alike, the daily tasks of a critical care RN include:
- Assessing and treating patients. Often, ICU patients are seen by a nurse before a doctor, so it is a critical care RN’s duty to gauge the patient’s condition and begin treatment. Necessary medical treatment may include anything from dressing wounds to taking vital signs. An ICU nurse is also responsible for monitoring patients’ conditions and reporting to the primary physician.
- Ordering diagnostic tests. Patients receiving treatment in an ICU are typically suffering from an injury or illness requiring a diagnosis. The critical care nurses implement orders for diagnostic testing, such as EKGs, X-rays or CT scans, and then review the results with the doctor to devise a treatment plan.
- Monitoring and operating equipment. Critical care patients will need cardiac monitors, ventilators and IVs to keep their condition stable, and a critical care RN is in charge of setting up these devices, monitoring their output and tracking the patient’s progress.
- Acting as a patient advocate. Patients entering the ICU are at their most vulnerable, so it is a critical care nurse’s job to offer support, empathy and education to make them feel at ease.
4 Steps to Becoming a Critical Care RN
Now that you know what a critical care nurse does, let’s discover how to become one. You are probably wondering how long it takes to become a critical care nurse. The answer is that it depends. The amount of time changes based on several factors, such as your educational background, whether you choose a traditional or accelerated nursing program, and how long it takes to be hired as a nurse in a critical care unit.
We’ve curated the four steps of how to become a critical care nurse. Use the following checkpoints to guide you on your career path.
1. Earn a BSN Degree
Choosing where to earn a BSN degree is the first step to becoming a critical care nurse. If you have a prior non-nursing bachelor’s degree or at least 54 non-nursing college credits, opt for an accelerated BSN program like ours at Concordia St. Paul. This will save you time compared to a traditional four-year BSN program.
Choosing a program with multiple start dates during the year allows you to start as soon as possible, and one that uses a hybrid nursing curriculum lets you work through materials at your own pace. Remember to research the program before applying to ensure that the selected program is accredited and state-approved, which ensures the program’s quality.
Once you’ve identified the program you want to apply to, your next step is contacting an admissions counselor, who will discuss any requirements you’ll need to fulfill before applying. Before earning a degree, you’ll need to complete all admissions requirements.
Like most ABSN programs, Concordia St. Paul (CSP) requires prerequisite courses to be completed before beginning nursing school. You’ll also need to meet minimum GPA requirements and pass an entrance exam. Once you’ve completed these requirements, you can submit a nursing school application. If you have any questions about the admissions process, our admissions counselors are here to guide you every step of the way.
After you’re accepted into nursing school, it’s time to put in the work and earn your degree. The curriculum at CSP combines online classes, skills labs and clinical learning experiences. These three learning modes give students a well-rounded education that effectively prepares them for a career in nursing.
In an ABSN program, you must work hard to achieve results. After all, accelerated BSN programs like the one at CSP condense a traditional nursing curriculum into a shorter timeframe of 16 months. The hard work will pay off quickly, and you’ll be able to start your nursing career on the right foot.
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2. Take the NCLEX and Get Licensed
With a BSN in hand, you’re almost ready to begin professional nursing practice. Passing the National Council Licensure Exam (NCLEX-RN) is the next step. This test covers the entire nursing school curriculum, and it takes practice to pass because the questions are designed not only to test your knowledge but also your clinical judgment.
Students generally spend a few months studying for the NCLEX, starting in the last semester of nursing school and continue to study full-time for a month or two before taking the exam. Once you’ve passed the NCLEX, you’ve met all the milestones for licensing and should be eligible to receive your registered nurse license from your state and begin practicing as a registered nurse.
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3. Gain Critical Care Nursing Experience
It’s finally time to begin working as a nurse! Now, you’re ready to get on-the-job experience. If you know you want to be a critical care nurse, you can apply for entry-level nursing jobs or new nursing graduate residencies in critical care units. Remember that these jobs can be competitive, so you may need to work in a general hospital unit for a year or two before landing an ICU job.
Once you begin working in a critical care unit, focus on honing your skills and learning from more experienced nurses. This is a high-pressure environment, and the patients you’ll work with are complex. You’ll also need to master many challenging technical skills, which will take practice and time. As you gain experience in a critical care unit, you will become comfortable handling a variety of difficult scenarios.
4. Consider Seeking Critical Care Nurse Certification
After working in a critical care unit for a few years and mastering the intricacies of caring for high-need patients, you can pursue certification in a critical care specialty. While this is not required, many nurses seek certification to distinguish themselves with credentials that match their experience level.
A few of the critical care nurse certifications that are available include:
- Acute/critical care nursing (adult, pediatric or neonatal).
- Cardiac surgery.
- Tele-ICU acute/critical care nursing.
- Acute/critical care knowledge professional (adult, pediatric or neonatal).
- Progressive care nursing.
If you have ambitious career goals, it may be worthwhile to get certified. A certification can bolster your experience and set you up for future leadership roles. In some settings, certification can lead to a higher rate of pay.
Critical Care Nursing Career Outlook
Critical care nurses treat patients at their most vulnerable, and this is a great responsibility. They must advocate for unconscious patients and comfort their families throughout the patient’s admission. The emotional and physical labor that accompanies such a fast-paced role can be intensive.
Critical care nurses benefit from quickly gaining experience as they work with top-of-the-line equipment and veteran professionals, treating patients with all kinds of ailments. As such, these nurses have many advancement opportunities, enjoy job security and typically take home a decent salary.
Job Growth
Across the board, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts registered nursing positions will grow by 6% from 2022 to 2032, creating about 193,100 openings each year. They attribute this growth to the aging population, which faces more health problems than the younger generations.
Luckily, Concordia St. Paul’s ABSN program is designed to help you and your peers become caring, competent nurses willing to help meet the demand.
Salary
The salary for a registered nurse, regardless of specialty, varies depending on location and experience. However, Payscale reports that as of 2024, the median annual wage for a critical care nurse is $81,727.
According to the reported data, it can take critical nurses 5-9 years of experience to reach the median salary. Critical care RNs just starting their career can expect an average total compensation of around $28.95, or $60,216. For such a demanding career, with dedication and hard work, critical care nurses can earn a comfortable living.
Advancement Opportunities
Once you have experience as a critical care nurse, you will be more than ready to take on various higher-level roles. Critical care nursing is one of the most complex and challenging specialties, preparing you to take on leadership roles in a clinical environment.
For example, you could move into a nurse management role within a critical care unit, enter a healthcare administration role or broaden your specialization with additional certifications. If you aspire to have greater independence, you could also return to school for a master’s or doctorate degree. These advanced degrees can lead you to becoming a nurse practitioner or another advanced practice provider. The options for a critical care RN are endless.
Look into what leadership roles are available to you and what these positions entail.
Begin Your Critical Care Career at Concordia St. Paul
Now that you know how to become a critical care nurse, it’s time to start your journey. The ABSN program at Concordia St. Paul, with locations in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Portland, Oregon, can help you achieve your goal in as few as 16 months.
If you have a non-nursing bachelor’s degree or at least 54 non-nursing college credits, you may be eligible to apply to the ABSN program. We offer three start dates each year at both locations, so you can spend less time waiting and more time earning a degree that will help you reach your goal of becoming a critical care nurse.
Contact us today by filling out our online form, and an admissions counselor will get in touch with you. There’s no time like now to get started on your future!