>> There are many technical skills as a nurse that you need to do your job.
You are constantly critical thinking, critically thinking.
You are constantly assessing your patient.
You're thinking ahead, you're doing 10 things at once and the skills developed here
at the nursing lab at WCTC prepares you for all of those.
We do IV push medications, so when there's an IV
in their arm we can give medications right into their blood stream.
As I said we can do vital signs, which may seem simple, but they can be kind of complicated
if you don't know what you're doing.
We do medication ministration, we get certified on that.
We put in Foley catheters to drain the bladder.
We can put splints on, we can put dressings on, we can do dressing changes.
We can hang IV's, place IV's.
All these skills are learned here at WCTC.
Communication is key in nursing.
If you can't communicate, you're going to have a very hard time to be a good nurse.
So communication between nurses and nurse, fellow nurses, it is critical.
Especially in the emergency department.
We're constantly either bouncing ideas off of each other or helping each other.
In an emergency department you may need that second or third set of hands from fellow nurses
to help you in a very critical situation.
If you don't have good rapport or good communication skills with them,
the patient could potentially suffer.
When speaking with a patient you need to be able to speak calmly,
clearly and in a language that they understand.
So to be a nurse you have to pass a state boards, which is called our NCLEX.
To do that you would have to graduate from an accredited school.
You can be either graduating with an associate degree or a bachelor's degree.
Both of those will get you your RN status, which is a registered nurse.
So I chose to go to WCDC, a two year university and achieve my associate's degree.