ICU Nurse job description

Cardiac monitors, mechanical ventilators, oxygen delivery devices, transducers, and pressure lines are the furniture of this job, and setting them up and watching them belongs to the nurse. O*NET describes critical care nurses as providing specialized nursing care to patients in critical or coronary care units. BLS does not report critical care separately, so the pay figure comes off the broad registered nurse line, 29-1141, the same one behind the registered-nurse page here. Its May 2025 median was $97,550, and the bottom decile of the line earned $68,940 against $137,470 at the top, across about 3.38 million registered nurses.

Core Duties and Responsibilities

Reading vital signs and lab data to decide whether a patient needs emergency intervention comes ahead of everything else in the unit. Watching for sepsis or shock and acting on it, giving medications intravenously, by injection, orally, or through gastric tubes, and tracking fluid intake and output for electrolyte imbalance follow immediately behind. Nurses in these units prioritize care across assigned critically ill patients, run pulmonary assessments for abnormal breathing, judge pain and sedation needs, collect specimens, and give blood products while watching for transfusion reactions. Documenting findings and revising treatment plans with the wider team matter too, as does advocating for patients and the families waiting on them.

Common Skills and Technologies

Monitoring leads, and behind it comes a flat tier: reading comprehension, active listening, speaking, critical thinking, social perceptiveness, and service orientation, with complex problem solving and judgment a step under them. Hot Technologies, the ones employers ask for by name, are three record systems here, Epic Systems, MEDITECH, and eClinicalWorks, with Microsoft Office and SharePoint alongside.

Education, Training, and Career Path

Critical care nursing falls in O*NET Job Zone 4, which assumes a four-year degree and several years of experience. Half the nurses surveyed hold a bachelor's degree, 36 percent an associate degree, and 11 percent a master's; the last few hold a post-master's certificate. Reported titles include ICU Nurse, Intensive Care Unit Registered Nurse, Newborn ICU RN, and Critical Care Registered Nurse (CCRN), so the specialty certification often shows up in the job title itself.

Sources: O*NET 30.0, 29-1141.03 Critical Care Nurses, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/29-1141.03. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 29-1141, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291141.htm.