An occupational nurse is a certified nurse who works to encourage better health in their workplace. These nurses can work anywhere from small offices to large corporations and their duties including helping management provide a safe healthy workplace for employees, administering pre-employment medical checks, treating patients who become injured or sick while at work, giving preventive health education, training employees in first aid, giving risk assessments, maintaining employee health records and establishing emergency health plans. The field of occupational nursing is growing and many people are on their way to becoming an occupational health nurse.
Instructions
1. Do as well as possible in high school. To become a nurse, you will need constantly to strive to be the best among your peers. The nursing shortage has affected the openings in nursing schools. There are a lot of nursing schools with wait lists, so you want to ensure you always stand out.
2. Enroll in an undergraduate program. You will need to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. You can opt to go to a two year college then transfer to a university or start off at the university. Either option will work.
3. Specialize. You can specialize in occupational health in two ways. The first way is to work 3,000 hours in 5 years in health nursing. You can also complete a certificate program in occupational health nursing. Many colleges offer this as post-graduate degree program.
4. Pass Certified Occupational Health Nurse-Specialist (COHN-S). After passing the COHN-S, you will officially be certified.
5. Remain certified. Every five years you will need to re-certify. To stay certified, you need 3,000 hours of occupational health work experience and 50 Continuing Nursing Education hours in occupational health practice.
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