How to become Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse in 2024

Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse Care for ill, injured, or convalescing patients or persons with disabilities in hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, private homes, group homes, and similar institutions. May work under the supervision of a registered nurse. Licensing required.

Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse is Also Know as

In different settings, Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse is titled as

  • Charge Nurse
  • Clinic Licensed Practical Nurse (Clinic LPN)
  • Clinic Nurse
  • Home Health Licensed Practical Nurse (Home Health LPN)
  • Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN)
  • Office Nurse
  • Pediatric LPN (Pediatric Licensed Practical Nurse)
  • Private Duty Nurse
  • Radiation Oncology Nurse
  • Triage LPN (Triage Licensed Practical Nurse)

Education and Training of Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse

Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse

Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.

Education Required for Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse

Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.

Degrees Related to Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse

Training Required for Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse

Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse in different industries are

What Do Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse do?

  • Observe patients, charting and reporting changes in patients' conditions, such as adverse reactions to medication or treatment, and taking any necessary action.
  • Administer prescribed medications or start intravenous fluids, noting times and amounts on patients' charts.
  • Answer patients' calls and determine how to assist them.
  • Measure and record patients' vital signs, such as height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, pulse, or respiration.
  • Provide basic patient care or treatments, such as taking temperatures or blood pressures, dressing wounds, treating bedsores, giving enemas or douches, rubbing with alcohol, massaging, or performing catheterizations.
  • Help patients with bathing, dressing, maintaining personal hygiene, moving in bed, or standing and walking.
  • Supervise nurses' aides or assistants.
  • Work as part of a healthcare team to assess patient needs, plan and modify care, and implement interventions.
  • Record food and fluid intake and output.
  • Evaluate nursing intervention outcomes, conferring with other healthcare team members as necessary.
  • Assemble and use equipment, such as catheters, tracheotomy tubes, or oxygen suppliers.
  • Collect samples, such as blood, urine, or sputum from patients, and perform routine laboratory tests on samples.
  • Prepare patients for examinations, tests, or treatments and explain procedures.
  • Prepare or examine food trays for conformance to prescribed diet.
  • Apply compresses, ice bags, or hot water bottles.
  • Clean rooms and make beds.
  • Inventory and requisition supplies and instruments.
  • Provide medical treatment or personal care to patients in private home settings, such as cooking, keeping rooms orderly, seeing that patients are comfortable and in good spirits, or instructing family members in simple nursing tasks.
  • Sterilize equipment and supplies, using germicides, sterilizer, or autoclave.
  • Assist in delivery, care, or feeding of infants.
  • Wash and dress bodies of deceased persons.
  • Make appointments, keep records, or perform other clerical duties in doctors' offices or clinics.
  • Set up equipment and prepare medical treatment rooms.

Qualities of Good Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse

  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.

Tools Used by Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse

  • Abdominal binders
  • Air fluidized beds
  • Ankle restraints
  • Apnea monitors
  • Automated external defibrillators AED
  • Automated spirometers
  • Bag infusion systems
  • Balkan frames
  • Blood glucometers
  • Blood transfusion drip regulators
  • Bucks extensions
  • Butterfly needles
  • Canes
  • Capillary tubes
  • Circo-electric beds
  • Clinical trapezes
  • Closed infusion systems
  • Compressor tabletop nebulizers
  • Continuous passive motion CPM equipment
  • Crutches
  • Crutchfield tongs
  • Desktop computers
  • Dialysis machines
  • Digital spirometers
  • Electrocardiography EKG units
  • Electronic blood pressure units
  • Electronic compressor nebulizers
  • Electronic stethoscopes
  • Enema equipment
  • Evacuated blood collection tubes
  • Fabric body holders
  • Filtered intravenous IV catheter tubing
  • Flexible nasogastric tubes
  • Frames
  • Gait belts
  • Gastric suction equipment
  • Glucometers
  • Halo traction equipment
  • Handheld spirometers
  • Heart monitors
  • Hemoglobinometer machines
  • Hemovac drains
  • Heparin locks
  • Hollow needles
  • Hyper/hypothermia blankets
  • Infusion controllers
  • Infusion pumps
  • Infusion sets
  • Intermittent infusion sets
  • Intermittent positive pressure breathing IPPB apparatus
  • Intradermal needles
  • Intramuscular needles
  • Intravenous IV needles
  • Intubation suctioning kits
  • Jackson-Pratt drains
  • Knee braces
  • Lancets
  • Lap belts
  • Limb restraints
  • Mechanical stethoscopes
  • Mercury blood pressure measuring equipment
  • Nebulizers
  • Neck braces
  • Needleless glucometers
  • Needleless intraveneous IV sets
  • Needleless intravenous IV withdrawal equipment
  • Non-invasive cardiac output monitors
  • Non-invasive cardio respiratory monitors
  • Non-vented intravenous IV catheter tubing
  • Notebook computers
  • Open infusion systems
  • Ostomy equipment
  • Over-the-needle intravenous IV catheters
  • Oxygen cylinders
  • Oxygen masks
  • Oxygen supplies
  • Oxygen tubing
  • Patient controlled analgesia PCA pumps
  • Patient lifters
  • Pediatric nebulizers
  • Personal computer PC-based spirometers
  • Personal computers
  • Pneumatic boots
  • Pocket spirometers
  • Portable nebulizers
  • Posey vests
  • Pulmonary function testing PFT equipment
  • Pulse oximeters
  • Respiration monitors
  • Restraints
  • Rotating bed
  • Safety belts
  • Safety infusion systems
  • Safety jackets
  • Safety needles
  • Safety vests
  • Saturation of oxygen SaO2 monitors
  • Subcutaneous hypodermic needles
  • Suture removal kits
  • Syringes
  • Tablet computers
  • Telemetry units
  • Through-the-needle intravenous IV catheters
  • Tourniquets
  • Tracheotomy tubes
  • Traction equipment
  • Traction weights
  • Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation TENS equipment
  • Transfer boards
  • Tuberculin TB skin test equipment
  • Ultrasonic cardiac output monitors
  • Ultrasonic Doppler equipment
  • Ultrasonic nebulizers
  • Urinary catheters
  • Vented intravenous IV catheter tubing
  • Walkers
  • Walking braces
  • Wheelchair belts
  • Wheelchairs
  • Wrist restraints

Technology Skills required for Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurse

  • Diagnostic and procedural coding software
  • eClinicalWorks EHR software
  • Electronic medical record EMR software
  • Epic Systems
  • FaceTime
  • Google Drive
  • Healthcare common procedure coding system HCPCS
  • Infusion management software
  • Inventory tracking software
  • Medical condition coding software
  • Medical procedure coding software
  • MedicWare EMR
  • MEDITECH software
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Exchange
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft Windows
  • Microsoft Word
  • PointClickCare healthcare software
  • Prescription processing software
  • Scheduling software
  • Spreadsheet software
  • Telephone triage software
  • Web browser software
  • Word processing software
  • YouTube
  • Zoom