Public Health Clinical Nurse Specialist

Public Health Nurses are concerned with overall health and disease prevention within the community. Clinical Nurse Specialists work to improve policies for patient care. Public Health Clinical Nurse Specialists do a little of both.

A career as a Public Health Clinical Nurse Specialist has you looking out for the good of the people in your community. That might mean ensuring family access to healthcare by working with community or governmental Representatives and recommending changes to current policies. It might also mean waging a political fight to keep a clinic open or develop new programs.

You also work to provide information about disease prevention and healthy living. You give presentations at the local elementary school, or find other ways to inform the community about the services available to them and educate about healthy lifestyle choices.

As a Public Health Clinical Nurse Specialist, you typically hold a higher degree in the nursing field. With that accomplishment comes the responsibility of supervising other Nurses and personnel. That allows you to delegate tasks and get more done in a day! It also means that you might hire, fire, and evaluate job performance.

Of course you’re a Nurse, so part of your duties might also be hands-on patient care. You might work at a family-planning clinic, run a smoking cessation workshop, handle AIDS cases, deal with food-borne illness outbreaks, or handle any number of other public health concerns.