What direction should I be taking if I want to be a Critical Care Nurse? What specific focuses can I have in the Army (ie Flight Medicine)?

Nurses do not PCS into a critical care flight nurse job, it is something you prepare for and deploy into. Your primary role would be staffing in an ICU. Now I do believe the enlisted paramedics are assigned in a permanent flight role but really you are not going to see much action anywhere outside of a CONUS based MEDCEN. There is some great training out there but we are just not getting into contact with the enemy in large volumes. My best experience has come out of the MICU at BAMC taking care of mostly retirees on CRRT and ECMO. If you go into nursing, don't expect in the military to go straight to ICU or ER because you have your paramedic. Army Nursing really does not care about your prehospital experience. It helped get me floated to the ICU in Germany during the second battle of Fallujah in Germany but I really did not get to where I wanted to be until the Critical Care Course. Dont get me wrong, it has been a great experience and I have gone from EMT-EMT-I-RN-Critical Care and ER RN to paramedic but the military does not care as much as civilian flight nurse jobs. Some civilian jobs want you dual certified. I am dual licensed in TX, RN and Licensed Paramedic and work part time as a paramedic for AMR.

Pointers, get good at what you want to be good at and realize being good needs experience, not a bunch of certs, licenses, and alphabet soup. I have my CCRN, CEN, and only needed 76 questions to pass my paramedic board. All that really tells you is that I am a good test taker. Some of my best experiences was working as a burn technician at a regional burn center and in the ER during nursing school. Get very good at anatomy and physiology because there have been times I did not really know the answer to a question but knew my anatomy well enough to answer it. Crackles in the lungs, what side of the heart causes this? If you know your cardio-pulm circulation, you can answer this. MAJ (Join to see) Probably has some good insight for you as well.

Army has JECC - joint enroute care course, focus is trauma rescue missions with dustoff. If possible knockout nursing school while In the guard or start the process. This all depends on your unit’s flexibility and tempo then direct commission as a 66H. Apply for CCN course after a few years as an LT, become a 66S and go from there. There are multiple ways to approach, just don’t be discouraged, keep it up and don’t give up - Goodluck !

Seek out an AMEDD recruiter. They can give you specifics on the programs. Also if you’re interested in going active duty the army has a nursing program you could apply to and be active duty as an officer completing it. I had a few of these students in my direct commissioning course with me.