Having a career in nephrology nursing is a challenge and a very satisfying way to spend your life. Nephrology nursing is working with patients who have kidney disorders. The definition of nephrology is that it's a branch of medicine that is concerned with the kidneys. Being a nephrology nurse is a whole lot more.

There are several career paths to be chosen from when you decide to become a nephrology nurse. It can be the direct care of a patient who has the end-stage of renal disease (ESRD) who have renal transplants or receive dialysis. You can decide to become an educator of the patients or communities and teach about the risk factors involved that lead to chronic kidney disease (CKD). There is a choice to do advocacy work, to deal with government agencies to create policies to improve the care of these patients. You can be involved in the research part that learns about treatment effectiveness and how the nursing practice affects the patient's outcome.

The nephrology nurse working in a hospital can go into acute/critical care, home training, in-center or clinic setting.

Whichever path is chosen, all nephrology nurses are working to help patients with the kidney disease live the most healthy lives that they can. And, this makes the patients feel better about themselves.

Much of the nephrology nursing education occurs right on the job. The undergraduate nursing curricula are lax and barely include more than an mention of nephrology. At the graduate level, the offers are slim. There are training programs that run for about ten weeks that include anatomy, physiology, disease process, principles of hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and transplants.

The Nephrology Nursing Certification Commission can certify a qualified registered nurse. They offer two choices. One is the certified nephrology nurse (CNN) exam designed to test skills in nephrology nursing. The certified dialysis nurse (CDN) exam tests for competency working in a dialysis setting. The employers who look for a nephrology nurse, want an RN with one year of experience, instead of the recent graduates. So it is important to first get a background in medical-surgical or critical care nursing.

It takes a lot of work and compassion to become a nephrology nurse, but the satisfaction of doing the job and helping the patient makes it a worthwhile profession.