I have a feeling that, of all of the various specialties of nurses, the one of genetics nurse is going to be the most exciting over the decades to come. At the moment the job entails testing for various genetic problems: it might be testing children for cystic fibrosis, it might be testing older people for Huntington’s Chorea, The problem is though, although we can test for these (and others) and treatments have been getting better, there’s no truly effective treatment for any of these genetic diseases. A positive result all too often means a painful and early death.

I cannot, of course, predict the future, but the work that’s been going on with the human genome and in various biotechnology labs means that I think it’s likely that this is going to change in the years to come. So entering this specialty now would be be being where some of the greatest changes in medicine are going to come from. Results of tests which now mean a very gloomy prognosis could in just a few short years time be something easily treatable.

The training for this area is just as it is with other areas of nursing. First, either a full college degree or a two year college degree, possibly even a one year Diploma program, followed by taking the license exam.

But as I say, I think this is going to be a very attractive area to work in. The new treatments will revolutionize the entire field and that in itself is interesting: but being a little mercenary for a moment, what usually happens when an area of medicine explodes is that the salaries for those already in it rise very strongly too.

One of the great victories of 20th century medicine was in the battle against diabetes. There’s a lot more of it about now, which is why we have so many diabetes management nurses, but that’s because so many people live so long with it now: most people diagnosed live long enough to die of something else (that’s known as a cure for a specific disease) while in the 1920s the average life span after diagnosis was less than one year.

The actual job in this specialty is less about actual treatment and much more about teaching people how to treat themselves. As it is now a chronic disease, people have to take responsibility for their own treatment. Thus diabetes nursing is about teaching people the value of a proper diet, how to check their blood sugar levels and how, if necessary, to give themselves insulin injections.

There is thus, along with the normal empathy necessary in most forms of nursing, a lot of systemizing required. As with any form of teaching, working out what is in fact getting through to the other person, what is not, is important, so that you can bolster what isn’t and not bore them with repeating what is. Thus, by our EQSQ personality tests, this part of nursing is probably better done by those with the balanced brain type by our personality tests.

It’s also tremendously rewarding: the diabetes management nurse who taught my mother how to treat herself says that finding people with something that might kill them at any time, then teaching them over a few weeks how to deal with it, is a pleasure. But even more so is visiting them every few months over the course of the next decade and more, realizing that those simple things you taught them are the reason they are still alive.

While we’re still looking at the different types of nurses we’re moving on from those who work in a particular setting to those who work on a particular disease or ailment and clearly addiction nurses (who help to treat people with drug, alcohol or tobacco addictions) come under this banner.

Qualification is the same as all of the other forms of registered nurse, a two or four year college degree or a Diploma, followed by the license exam, but I think the difference here that’s most important is the implications for the results of our EQSQ personality tests. While all three of the addictions have their physical side to them (nicotine generally being the worst, although withdrawal from alcohol is the only one that can kill) that physical side is really a very minor part of the whole process of treating addicts.

The thing is, there’s something about human beings that likes getting blasted (it occurs in other animals too: elephants are known to get drunk on rotting fruit) and this normally isn’t a problem. However, some people like doing it so often that it affects normal life: this is a problem and that’s where we define it as an addiction. So the treatment has to work on dialing back the excessive expression of an entirely normal human impulse. That’s much more about changing the way someone thinks than it is anything physical. And in that is of course the major problem.

Addiction nursing is really one of the more systemizing types of the profession: certainly, one should have empathy for those being treated, but the systemizing skills are more important I think. For it’s entirely necessary to impose systems upon the addicts, in order to make that vitally needed change in their heads.

Continuing our merry dance through the various specialties of nurses we come to transplant nurses. If you become a transplant nurse you’ll be dealing with both those who are waiting for a transplant and those who have received one: there’s more to it than just the actual operation, there needs to be continual monitoring to check for possible organ rejection. There is also, in those few situations when there is a live transplant donor (as with some kidneys), the care needed for them as well.

The education and training is as it is for other registered nurses: either a full college degree, a two year college degree or a Diploma, followed by taking the license exam (and passing it, naturally).

Where this becomes interesting I think is in what sort of results from our EQSQ personality tests would best suit those in this field. It can be extraordinarily rewarding, this form of medicine, for the effect that a transplant can have on someone is near miraculous. Someone getting a new heart, for example, would have been at death’s door, quite unable to do anything other than lie in bed: within a day or two of the operation they are encouraged to use exercise bicycles: a stunning change.

On the other hand, most people who need transplants do not actually get them: there’s a terrible shortage of organs suitable to be used. Quite what effect that would have, knowing that many of your patients will die and that some will be saved, purely by random chance (it depends upon the tissue types of those who die in accidents), well, I just don’t know here.

What do you think?

Rehabilitation nurses really rather split into two groups. There are those who care for people with long term, permanent problems and those who deal with short term ones. In a small town or a small institution, you’ll probably deal with both, the larger the place or facility, the more likely it is that you’ll deal with only one or the other. Each side of this divide makes rather different demands so different personality types by our EQSQ personality tests might be suitable. For the permanent disabilities, it’s very difficult to treat someone and know that the basic problem is not going to go away. Certainly, there can be advances, but they will be small and will concentrate upon marginal improvements. This can be extremely draining emotionally and probably requires almost extreme empathy, or a very female brain type by those personality tests.

Treating those with only temporary problems is rather different, in that there’s a well understood road map to get from the current state of illness to becoming well again. Just as an example, treating someone who has had a minor stroke and who in a few months will be back, walking and talking is going to be rather different from someone who has been more severely afflicted: who might never regain the power of speech, but who needs to be cared for all the same. The long term emotional demands and the “pay offs” are going to be quite different, I hope you can see?

Thus if you’re deciding to specialize in treating those with short-term problems you’ll still need to be an empathizer (in common with almost all nursing) but not in such an extreme way.

As with the other nurse specialties, radiologic nursing requires first that you qualify as a registered nurse. There are three ways of doing this. First, via a four your college degree, second, via a junior or two year college degree and third, via a diploma program. All also require that you pass the licensure exams. Why would anyone take the longer and more expensive route, that of the full college degree? Why not take the shortest, the diploma, and start work three years earlier?

The answer is that while this is definitely possible the more senior, supervisory (and often the more interesting and certainly the better paid) jobs are only available to those who have the full college degree. What often in fact happens is that people who take one of the latter two routes then, some years later, take a conversion program to gain the full qualification: one advantage of doing it this way is that you can indeed start work earlier, at the expense of having to go back to school (although often part-time only) later.

Radiologic nurses are those who take care of people getting radiation based diagnostic treatment: ultrasound and MRIs for example. As such, by the standards of our EQSQ personality tests, you’d want to make sure you have the empathic, or female brain type. While patients will be rarely obviously ill, they are having tests and will be worried, they’ll also almost always be wide awake, meaning that a smiling and caring presence will be necessary.

Psychiatric nursing has long been one of the nurse specialties with more men in it than most others. This isn’t at least so far as I know, anything to do with our EQSQ personality tests and the relative aptitude for the job of systemizers or empathizers. Rather, it’s more to do with the sheer brawn which men can, on average, bring to the party. While quite a lot, certainly a majority, of psychiatric patients are no threat to anyone else there is that substantial portion which at times become hysterical or violent. Thus the historical number of men.

As with all other specialties of registered nursing, the training involves taking the license exam. To get to that position you need to have either a full four year college degree, or a two year one, or have taken the one year Diploma program. Many who have taken the last two then take conversion of top up programs to get to the full college degree. These can be done either during a career break or part-time while working. The advantage of the full degree is that it gives you a lot more opportunity as to how and where you’ll work and also the possibility of promotion to a supervisory position. The advantage of the other two routes and then conversion is that you get to start working and earning sooner. It’s also often true that your employer will subsidize, in part or in whole, the cost of the extra education: there’s a real shortage of highly qualified nurses out there.

Perioperative nurses are another of our nurse specialties and they’re the ones you see in House, General Hospital and Grey’s Anatomy standing around the operating theatre in their scrubs. As this type of nurse you’ll aid the doctors by selecting and passing on instruments, dealing with swabs (yes, even wiping the sweating brow of the surgeon as the plot moves it its important moment) and doing some of the stitching (technically, suturing) of incisions and so on.

The training is of course the same as for all of the different specialties of registered nurse: one of the three ways to taking the license exam. A full four year college degree, a two year college degree or a one year diploma program. Those who take the latter two often later take a conversion program as it is those with the full college degree who get all of the promotions and the interesting jobs.

Perioperative nursing is slightly strange in relation to our EQSQ personality tests. You see, you never actually get to meet any patients. Or, rather, you may well end up arms deep in the bowels of a patient, but you’re most unlikely to meet them when they’re conscious, and thus obviously a human being. So this is a variation of nursing where you really don’t need as much of the female brain as with most others, indeed, if you want to get into the medical field but know that you have a male or systemizing brain type, this may well be the specialty for you.

There’s also another closely related job, surgical assistant, and I’ve heard that the percentage of men in both is much higher than it is throughout nursing in general: which rather makes out point about the systemizing requirements.

You don’t know how hard I had to look at perianesthesia nurses to spell it correctly in this, our little wander through the different nurse specialties. This one is all about looking after people before, and after they get anesthesia, usually as they get an operation of some kind (there are some diagnostic tests that require it as well).

Quite where you would be best placed on our EQSQ personality tests I’m not really sure: all of your patients will be either about to be unconscious or just coming round from being so. Anesthesia itself is a very complex technical area (over and above things like diabetics and so on requiring different amounts and possibly even different drugs, did you know that redheads need more anesthesia than other hair colors?) but then that’s what anesthesiologists are for. Your job is more in preparing and then caring for the patient as they come out of it.

I think actually that the primary requirement here would be a very convincing manner: “Yes, of course everything is going to be fine” as people slip into unconsciousness. The second would probably be empathy, meaning that you’d want t make sure you are from the female brain end of our personality tests. The reaction of the human body to recovery from an anesthetic is not pretty so you would need to have a strong desire to help people to deal with it.

Given the very nature of the process, this is one of the types of nursing which really only takes place in hospitals.

As a specialty within the group of nurses this one, occupational health nurse, is a little different, in that it will call substantially upon the systemizing side of the brain, indeed, might be one of the few types of nursing suitable for those with the mixed or even male type brain by our EQSQ personality tests.

After the usual training (a two of four year college degree or a Diploma, then a license exam, many taking one of the latter two and then upgrading to the full college degree later) and occupational health nurse will of course be treating work related injuries. You’ll usually be based within a workplace, whether an office or factory, so as to be available when needed. This is where the usual empathizing side of the character necessary for nursing will be needed.

However, much of the job is in fact in preventing injury: this is what calls upon the systemizing side. Looking at the current methods of work, the machinery used, how things are done, and aiding the management in changing these so as to reduce the number of injuries caused. In fact, the aim is to get to a zero injury rate, so that there is no need for a nurse at all: odd, but there it is. There’s also drawing up the protocols and procedures to make sure that the illness rate remains as low as possible.

That all draws rather more on the male side of the brain that do most other forms of nursing.