Cath Lab Nurse Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Cath Lab Nurse resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
The cath lab nurse is a highly specialized nurse who works with doctors to provide cardiac care to patients. They’re responsible for administering anesthesia before procedures, monitoring patients during their stay in the cath lab, and helping them recover afterward.
Because there are so many different roles within this field, there’s a lot of room for growth within the cath lab nursing field. Some nurses might choose to specialize in one area like cardiac surgery while others might choose to work in a more general setting like an emergency room.
Regardless of where you want to end up in your career, it’s important to have a solid resume on hand when applying for jobs in this field. Here are some tips and an example for reference when writing your own.
How to Write a Cath Lab Nurse Resume
Here’s how to write a resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
Bullet points are the most important part of your resume because they’re the first thing recruiters will see. And they’re the best way to showcase your experience and qualifications.
So it’s crucial that you use them to their full potential. And that means using them to describe your accomplishments and using specific numbers and details to quantify them.
For example, rather than saying you “assisted with procedures,” you could say you “assisted with 15+ procedures daily, including 15+ cardiac catheterizations, 15+ angioplasties, and 15+ stent placements.”
The second bullet point is much more specific and provides a clear sense of the scale of the work you did.
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you submit your resume for a clinical lab nurse role, it’s likely that it will be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for certain keywords. This system looks for certain terms related to the job, like “blood draw” or “hematology,” to determine whether your skills are a match for the position. If your resume doesn’t have enough relevant keywords, the ATS might automatically reject your application.
To increase your chances of getting an interview, use this list of common keywords as a starting point to help you identify the skills and experience that are most important for the job:
- Cardiac Cath Lab
- Cardiac Nursing
- Cardiac Surgery
- Cardiology
- Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
- Critical Care Nursing
- Nursing
- Basic Life Support (BLS)
- Healthcare
- Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
- Inpatient Care
- Hospitals
- Patient Safety
- Acute Care
- Emergency Nursing
- Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
- Medication Administration
- Vascular Access
- IV Therapy
- Nursing Education
- Advanced Life Support (ALS)
- Phlebotomy
- Patient Education
- Intravenous Therapy (IV)
- Health Education
- Health Promotion
- Operating Room
- Electrocardiography (ECG)
- Informatics
- Cardiovascular Disease
Showcase Your Technical Skills
As a cath lab nurse, you need to be proficient in the use of technology in order to effectively care for patients. This includes being familiar with electronic health records (EHR) systems, as well as specific cath lab equipment. Additionally, you should have a solid understanding of how the cath lab works, as well as the procedures that are performed there.
Some of the programs and systems that you should be familiar with include:
-EHR systems: Epic, Cerner, McKesson, etc. -Cath lab equipment: X-ray machines, angiography machines, etc. -Cardiac catheterization procedures: angioplasty, stenting, etc.