Cardiovascular Critical Care Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistant

Quick Facts

• Role: Nurse Practitioner (NP) or Physician Assistant (PA) — Cardiovascular/Cariothoracic Critical Care

• Focus: Perioperative management in the Cardiac Surgical ICU (admission through discharge)

• Schedule: 24/7 rotating coverage (days, nights, weekends, holidays) with regional cross-coverage

Description

Under the medical director’s guidance, the NP/PA evaluates, diagnoses, and treats patients using department-approved written guidelines. In this role, you will manage ventilators, sedation, hemodynamics, and diagnostics while coordinating with multidisciplinary teams for complex postoperative and critical conditions. Responsibilities may include advanced procedures such as central and arterial line placement, pulmonary artery catheter placement, and point-of-care ultrasound.

Responsibilities

• Assess physical and psychosocial status using interview, health history, physical exam, and diagnostics

• Recognize deviations from normal and collaborate with a physician to develop treatment plans and follow-up

• Prescribe medications and blood products based on laboratory results; order diagnostics and follow-up studies per protocols

• Request physician and other healthcare professional consultations to ensure appropriate, quality patient care

• Interpret and evaluate test findings; relay appropriate patient information to the collaborating physician

• Administer therapeutic measures and obtain specimens as prescribed

• Conduct daily multidisciplinary rounds and perform patient triage to determine urgency of physician evaluation

• Provide on-call coverage; dictate follow-up letters and complete admissions, care plan, progress, and discharge documentation

• Maintain preventive health services when applicable

• Support family dynamics and coping during acute and chronic phases of care

• Evaluate care quality and recommend improvements; participate in Quality and Process Improvement initiatives

Requirements

• Master’s degree in Nursing or Master’s in Physician Assistant studies

• 1 to 3 years experience as an Advanced Practice nurse in a specialty clinical setting (acute care strongly preferred)

• State of Michigan NP/PA license required

• AHA/ARC BLS certification required