Nursing Program at Plaza Medical Center

Nurses who pursue this specialty at Plaza work with patients who suffer from diseases of the heart and circulatory system, and with their families and loved ones.

Many of them are critical care nurses who have acquired the highly specialized body of knowledge, skills, and experience that enables them to provide the complex assessment, high intensity therapies and interventions, and continuous nursing vigilance that heart patients often require.

This involves education and training that go well beyond the basic preparation received by a registered nurse (RN). Desirable certifications include a CCRN (critical care), CMC (cardiac medicine), CSC (cardiac surgery) and PCCN (progressive care).

The nurses who work in Plaza’s cardiac catheterization laboratory are involved in one of the super-subspecialties for which the hospital is widely known. They aid in the diagnosis of heart disease and assist with interventional procedures - including cardiac catheterizations, angioplasties, and valvuloplasties. They also help implant pacemakers and defibrillators, and therefore must keep up with the latest advances in technology in their rapidly evolving field.