With the field of health care developing at a rapid pace, like all fields of health care nursing has been more developed and complex. Nurses have begun specializing in a particular area of health care. One the most important areas of nursing is the labor and delivery nursing. With the shortage of supply for qualified nurses in labor and delivery nursing, the demand is higher than ever before. A nurse who specializes in this field is known as L & D nurse (Labor & Delivery Nurse). L & D nurses are in high demand which makes earn a fairly lucrative salary. Although they have high rewards they would require a lot of diligence, patience and skill as taking care of newborns and their mothers is a no mean job.

The following are some of the requirements for a L & D nurse:

1. L & D nurses need to be registered nurses. When a nursing student completes either a two year associate degree or a four year bachelor degree or even a diploma program in nursing they become a Registered Nurse (RN). On top of a degree they are supposed the clear the National Council Licensure Examination to get a license for registered license. Only then they would get degree Bachelor of Science in nursing. Almost all the hospitals, nursing employers, office of Doctors and medical centers look for registered nurses. On top of that they also require Registered nurses with some amount of clinical hours or in another words they have worked in hospitals as a trainee or as a part time employee. The requirement might vary from 20 to 100 hours depending up on the skill level required. For a L & D nurse it requires at least a bare minimum of 60 to 100 clinical hours.

2. Just getting a registered status and having some clinical hours under the belt is hardly considered to be sufficient enough for any clinic, hospital, maternity or Gynecology center to hire an L & D nurse. It requires at least a couple of years of experience in a medical surgery unit in a any hospital. This would have helped them gaining valuable experience inter acting with different kind of patients with ailments. They would know how to act during critical stages of delivery and take care of the newborns.

3. The nursing boards in the United States of America will not require any additional degrees to become a L & D nurse. But most of the clinics and hospitals would definitely require the L & D nurses to do certifications in Neonatal resuscitation and also fetal monitoring. This definitely will aid them better compared other nurses in providing instant assistance to a newborn baby. They will also be required to do various maternity related duties like preparations for birth, delivery of a newborn, birth and finally after care. They should handle delivery during complicated pregnancies which is known antepartum nursing. Also they should assist during cesarean sections, this called as circulating nursing.

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Not all health practitioners can speak a foreign language. Taking up a course in nursing does not require us to enroll in a foreign language class. Yet, what if a man staggering with a bleeding wound walks up to you on your shift and starts speaking to you in an unfamiliar Asian language? As a nurse your first course of action is to prevent further bleeding. After stabilizing his condition, you eventually are going to talk to him. You will definitely be needing an interpreter t get your message across and for you to decipher his answers. The point here is, you simply have got to bridge that gap and talk to your patient in order to assess his condition and find an answer to his presenting problem.

Talk to your patient

You are never going to find out the cause of your patient’s problem unless you talk to him or his significant other who can speak on his behalf. Some physical manifestations could tell you a lot already. However, a direct line to the patient could lead you to more accurate answers.

Ask. Do not assume

Communication is a very powerful tool in health care. We get nowhere with our patients if his or significant others refuses to talk. It is not our place to simply assume things based only on what we see and know. The physical manifestations we see form only the tip of the ice berg that is the totality of the patient’s condition.

Without proper communication, we do not get a complete and accurate history of event surrounding the patient’s condition. Doctors can under estimate and misdiagnose the patient’s condition. Doctors and nurses alike could end up giving a medication that ultimately does not do any good for the patient and may even worsen his condition.

Nurses assess and reassess

We nurses are the frontliners in the care of the patients. We are there with them 24/7. At every waking moment that we have the chance to speak to our patients, we should do so. They can tell us a lot of their current status. They can tell us whether they have other physical problems that they are experiencing.

Know thy self

There are two types of persons, an introvert and an extrovert. If you are a nurse and you find yourself on the side of the introverts, you have two choices. Either you quit your job as a nurse or you can come out of your shell and learn to communicate openly with your patients.

You cannot give what you do not have. You should know yourself. We all know that talking to our patients is an effective way to get them to talk to us. Communication is a two way process. As a nurse you need to go halfway in order to meet your patients. Communication is the key to making good nursing assessments.

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Nursing assistants have contributed to the medical field by their hard work. They help their patients to meet their basic necessities. They build close relationship with these patients and get close to them. They are trained to do such stuff and this training is really helpful for others. They have skills to work hard, and work under pressure.

Though these nurses take pride in their work, but they also feel they are being taken for granted. They do so much work while remaining in the background. This is why people fail to realize their importance and appreciate them. There are several ways in which these nurses can be appreciated.

Many families leave a thank you card or note to these assistant nurses. This simple note makes a huge difference as these notes motivate these nurses as they feel that there are people who recognize their hard work. This makes them work much harder. A small gift such as a flower bouquet and chocolates can really make a big difference while you are thanking a person for their work.

We have seen that nurses do not appreciate their assistant’s good work and only point out at the mistakes they have made. This needs to be changed as just a small word of appreciation makes a huge difference. Employers should make nurses feel that they are part of the job and their skills are highly needed. This can be done by involving them in the discussions. This will gain the nurse self confidence and they would feel their importance.

Employers should not lose these assistants as these nurses are highly demanded. If their assistant nurse is facing burnout or need counseling then they should provide them with Specialists.

Employers can send appreciation to every nursing assistants and the entire team as a whole using employment news letters. These news letters are important stuff as people read this. These news letters plus the appreciation letter may be given to the employees on pay day to make them feel extremely important. If a medical institute takes part in Employee Appreciation Day then the employers should fully utilize the day to appreciate their employees. Raises and bonuses and other monetary and non -monetary benefits should be provided to these assistants to motivate these workers so they work much harder than they already do.

Most of these nurses do not choose this profession to gain recognition. Their main aim is to help others fight diseases and make them feel comfortable when they need it the most. Not being appreciated makes the nurse lack of motivation. This even adds up with the burnout and overworked feeling that these nurses are affected with. This makes them leave the profession. All employers and medical staff should work in the interest of making these nurses feel that they are very important part of this profession and they are most needed. Many people have the idea that these nurses are not well educated and are of no good use. This will minimize the number of nurse assistants.

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