Top 12 Wound Care Nurse Skills to Put on Your Resume

Crafting a compelling resume is crucial for aspiring wound care nurses, highlighting their specialized skills and dedication to patient recovery. A well-curated list of top wound care nursing skills can significantly enhance your resume, showcasing your expertise and readiness to tackle the demands of this challenging yet rewarding field.

Wound Care Nurse Skills

1. V.A.C. Therapy
2. Wound Assessment
3. Debridement Techniques
4. Infection Control
5. Pressure Injury Management
6. Dressing Application
7. Pain Management
8. Patient Education
9. Tissue Viability
10. MIST Therapy
11. Lymphedema Management
12. Nutritional Counseling

1. V.A.C. Therapy

V.A.C. Therapy, or Vacuum-Assisted Closure Therapy, is a negative pressure wound therapy that applies controlled suction to support healing in acute and chronic wounds by removing exudate, reducing edema, promoting perfusion, and driving granulation tissue formation.

Why It's Important

V.A.C. Therapy accelerates complex wound healing, helps control bioburden, improves local blood flow, and fosters robust granulation tissue. Better wounds, fewer complications, happier patients.

How to Improve V.A.C. Therapy Skills

Sharpening V.A.C. Therapy practice hinges on technique, vigilance, and communication.

1. Deepen knowledge: Master device operation, pressure settings, modes, and alarms. Review manufacturer guidance (3M V.A.C. Therapy) and current clinical protocols.
2. Nail the seal: Meticulous drape placement, bridging when needed, and judicious use of paste/strips to prevent leaks.
3. Assess relentlessly: Recheck the wound bed, periwound, exudate volume, and device function at each encounter; adjust settings and dressing type accordingly.
4. Protect skin: Use barrier films, offload tubing, and prevent maceration with appropriate interface layers.
5. Educate patients: Explain device care, what alarms mean, and red flags (odor, fever, sudden pain, seal loss).
6. Collaborate: Coordinate with surgeons, ID, and rehab to align debridement timing, pressure settings, and offloading plans.

Applied well, V.A.C. Therapy can transform a stagnant wound into a steadily contracting one.

How to Display V.A.C. Therapy Skills on Your Resume

2. Wound Assessment

Wound assessment is a structured review of the wound and periwound: location, etiology, size, depth, undermining/tunneling, tissue types, exudate amount and character, odor, pain, infection signs, perfusion, and factors that influence healing (nutrition, mobility, comorbidities).

Why It's Important

Assessment steers the entire plan. The right diagnosis, the right dressing, the right escalation point—made possible by clear, repeatable observations and measurements.

How to Improve Wound Assessment Skills

1. Standardize: Use consistent measurement methods, photographic documentation, and validated scales.
2. Think holistically: Consider vascular status, glycemic control, nutrition, offloading needs, and medications that impair healing.
3. Use tools: Digital measurement apps and structured templates reduce guesswork and improve consistency.
4. Know the staging systems: Follow NPIAP guidance for pressure injuries and current frameworks for diabetic foot and venous disease.
5. Trend over time: Compare week-to-week changes to judge if the plan is working or needs a pivot.

Better assessments lead to sharper interventions and faster course corrections.

How to Display Wound Assessment Skills on Your Resume

3. Debridement Techniques

Debridement removes devitalized, contaminated, or infected tissue to reset the wound bed for healing. Options include conservative sharp/surgical debridement, mechanical methods (e.g., irrigation or low-pressure lavage; avoid routine wet-to-dry due to tissue trauma), enzymatic agents, autolytic approaches with moisture-retentive dressings, and biological debridement with sterile larvae. Choice depends on patient tolerance, vascular status, infection burden, and goals of care.

Why It's Important

Clean beds heal. Debridement decreases bioburden, reduces inflammatory slough, exposes healthy tissue, and improves the effectiveness of antimicrobials and dressings.

How to Improve Debridement Techniques Skills

1. Train and retrain: Refresh sharp technique, tissue recognition, hemostasis, and pain control at regular intervals.
2. Match method to wound: Use sharp for urgent or heavy necrosis; enzymatic/autolytic for fragile skin or low-pain options; biological when selective precision is needed.
3. Optimize analgesia: Premedicate, consider topical anesthetics, and pause when pain signals the need to adjust.
4. Use proper tools: Maintain sharp instruments, adequate lighting, and safe irrigation pressures (generally 4–15 psi).
5. Document precisely: Amount and type of tissue removed, bleeding control, and patient response.
6. Pursue certification: Consider credentials through organizations such as the American Board of Wound Management (ABWM).

Technique plus judgment—both matter, every time.

How to Display Debridement Techniques Skills on Your Resume

4. Infection Control

Infection control means stopping microbes from hitching a ride into wounds or spreading between patients. It spans hand hygiene, aseptic technique, appropriate dressings, device care, and environmental cleanliness—protecting patients and clinicians alike.

Why It's Important

Lower infection rates, fewer complications, quicker healing. It’s the guardrail that keeps everything else on track.

How to Improve Infection Control Skills

1. Hand hygiene without fail: Before and after every contact; gloves are not a substitute.
2. PPE with purpose: Gloves, gowns, masks, and eye protection matched to exposure risk.
3. Aseptic technique: Sterile when entering sterile spaces; clean technique for many chronic wounds per policy and clinical judgment.
4. Smart wound cleansing: Use appropriate solutions, avoid harsh agents on healthy tissue, and change dressings at evidence-based intervals.
5. Antibiotic stewardship: Culture when indicated, treat true infection, and avoid reflexive antibiotics for colonization.
6. Environment matters: Disinfect surfaces, manage sharps safely, and maintain equipment per protocol.
7. Keep learning: Follow current guidance from CDC, WHO, and professional societies.

Rigor here pays off everywhere else.

How to Display Infection Control Skills on Your Resume

5. Pressure Injury Management

Pressure injury management focuses on prevention, early detection, and targeted treatment—relieving pressure and shear, protecting skin, and optimizing the wound microenvironment to drive healing.

Why It's Important

Prevents avoidable harm, curbs infection risk, reduces pain, slashes costs. Dignity preserved, outcomes improved.

How to Improve Pressure Injury Management Skills

1. Risk screening: Use validated tools (e.g., Braden) paired with clinical judgment. Reassess with condition changes.
2. Offloading and repositioning: Individualize schedules, float heels, and use support surfaces matched to risk and weight distribution.
3. Skin protection: Moisture management, barrier products, and prompt incontinence care to prevent MASD.
4. Nutrition and hydration: Address deficits early; involve a registered dietitian for complex needs.
5. Wound-specific care: Debride nonviable tissue, manage exudate, choose dressings that maintain moisture balance, and consider adjunctive therapies when indicated.
6. Interdisciplinary work: PT/OT for mobility, vascular and endocrine for comorbid control, and nursing staff education to sustain prevention.

Current guidance from NPIAP and wound care societies can anchor protocols and education.

How to Display Pressure Ulcer Management Skills on Your Resume

6. Dressing Application

Dressing application means cleansing, protecting, and covering the wound to maintain moisture balance, handle exudate, guard against contamination, and support atraumatic changes.

Why It's Important

The right dressing does heavy lifting—moisture control, insulation, protection—so tissue can do the healing.

How to Improve Dressing Application Skills

1. Assess first: Size, depth, tunnels, exudate, periwound, odor, pain—let the wound tell you what it needs.
2. Match dressing to need: Alginates and foams for higher exudate, hydrocolloids/hydrogels for moisture balance, silicones for fragile skin, antimicrobials when bioburden is a concern.
3. Prepare the periwound: Protect with barrier film, trim hair if appropriate, and dry surrounding skin for adhesion.
4. Apply without tension: Avoid wrinkles and shear; fill dead space lightly without packing tight.
5. Secure smartly: Choose secondary securement that won’t strip skin and that tolerates expected movement or moisture.
6. Set change intervals: Based on exudate, product dwell time, and wound status—don’t change more than needed.
7. Document and re-evaluate: Each change is a chance to reassess and refine the plan.

Small technique tweaks can mean big comfort gains and cleaner progress.

How to Display Dressing Application Skills on Your Resume

7. Pain Management

Pain management in wound care blends thorough assessment with layered interventions—topical and systemic therapies, timing, and technique—to reduce suffering and enable care.

Why It's Important

Pain blocks mobility, sleep, appetite, and trust. Treat it well, and everything—from debridement tolerance to adherence—gets easier.

How to Improve Pain Management Skills

1. Assess with intention: Use validated scales; capture baseline, procedure-related, and rest pain, plus neuropathic features.
2. Premedicate procedures: Dose oral analgesics ahead of dressing changes; consider topical anesthetics for debridement.
3. Choose atraumatic dressings: Silicone interfaces, non-adherent layers, and gentle removal techniques.
4. Multimodal approach: Combine non-opioids, adjuvants for neuropathic pain, and non-pharmacologic methods (heat/cold when appropriate, relaxation, positioning).
5. Time it right: Schedule care when analgesia peaks; cluster tasks to minimize repeated pain spikes.
6. Personalize: Adjust based on response, side effects, and patient goals—then document the impact.

Comfort isn’t a luxury; it’s part of the treatment plan.

How to Display Pain Management Skills on Your Resume

8. Patient Education

Patient education arms patients and caregivers with the know-how to manage wounds safely at home—what to do, when to do it, and when to call for help.

Why It's Important

Empowered patients adhere better, spot problems sooner, and heal faster. Education shrinks the gap between clinic and home.

How to Improve Patient Education Skills

1. Start where they are: Assess health literacy, language, and prior knowledge before you teach.
2. Keep it plain: Simple, concrete instructions; avoid jargon; focus on the “why” behind each step.
3. Show, then have them show you: Demonstrations plus teach-back to confirm understanding.
4. Use visuals: Photos, diagrams, and step lists that match their actual supplies.
5. Write it down: Clear home-care instructions, red flags, and contact pathways.
6. Plan follow-up: Early check-ins to troubleshoot and reinforce habits.

Education that sticks is interactive, specific, and revisited.

How to Display Patient Education Skills on Your Resume

9. Tissue Viability

Tissue viability centers on creating and protecting conditions where healthy tissue can thrive—adequate perfusion, moisture balance, controlled inflammation, and intact surrounding skin.

Why It's Important

Support the tissue, and the tissue will do the healing. Neglect the basics, and even the best dressings sputter.

How to Improve Tissue Viability Skills

1. Assess circulation: Screen for arterial disease and edema; escalate for vascular evaluation when indicated.
2. Balance moisture: Absorb excess exudate without desiccating; protect periwound from maceration.
3. Combat pressure and shear: Offload, reposition, and use surfaces that spread load.
4. Address bioburden: Debride nonviable tissue and choose dressings with antimicrobial properties when needed.
5. Fuel healing: Ensure adequate protein, calories, vitamins A and C, zinc, and hydration.
6. Protect skin: Barrier products and gentle adhesives, especially for fragile or irradiated skin.

Measure, intervene, re-measure—then repeat until the trend is right.

How to Display Tissue Viability Skills on Your Resume

10. MIST Therapy

MIST Therapy delivers non-contact, low-frequency ultrasound to stimulate cellular activity, disrupt biofilms, and promote microcirculatory changes—without disturbing the wound bed.

Why It's Important

Gentle, targeted energy that can jump-start stalled wounds and complement debridement and dressings, especially when touch is painful.

How to Improve MIST Therapy Skills

1. Formal training: Complete device-specific education and refreshers to maintain consistency and safety.
2. Protocol discipline: Apply correct distance, sweep speed, and dwell time; integrate with debridement and dressing choices.
3. Select patients wisely: Use for stalled chronic wounds, high-pain patients, or where selective biofilm disruption is helpful.
4. Track outcomes: Document weekly area reduction and tissue changes to verify benefit.
5. Educate patients: Explain the non-contact nature and expected sensations to build comfort and adherence.

When paired with sound wound bed prep, results often accelerate.

How to Display MIST Therapy Skills on Your Resume

11. Lymphedema Management

Lymphedema management focuses on reducing fluid burden, protecting skin, and preserving function through complete decongestive therapy: manual lymphatic drainage, compression, exercise, and meticulous skincare.

Why It's Important

Unchecked edema fuels wounds, infections, and disability. Control it, and wounds calm down, mobility improves, life opens back up.

How to Improve Lymphedema Management Skills

1. Teach the fundamentals: Elevation, gentle exercise, weight management, and avoiding constrictive clothing or procedures on the affected limb.
2. Skincare rigor: Daily moisturizers, prompt treatment of cuts, and early action at signs of cellulitis.
3. MLD proficiency: Use gentle, proximal-to-distal techniques and sequence correctly; pursue formal training where available.
4. Compression mastery: Select and fit garments or multilayer bandaging; remeasure as volumes change.
5. Plan for maintenance: Transition patients to long-term self-care routines and periodic reassessment.

Consistency is everything—small daily habits keep swelling at bay.

How to Display Lymphedema Management Skills on Your Resume

12. Nutritional Counseling

Nutritional counseling targets the nutrients and energy needed for tissue repair—adequate calories, high-quality protein, and key micronutrients—to support the immune response and collagen synthesis.

Why It's Important

Even perfect dressings can’t overcome protein-calorie malnutrition. Nourish right, and wounds gain momentum.

How to Improve Nutritional Counseling Skills

1. Screen early: Use validated tools (e.g., MUST or MST) and check weight trends, appetite, and labs in context.
2. Set targets: Align calorie and protein goals to clinical status; consider arginine, vitamin C, vitamin A, and zinc when deficiencies or high needs exist.
3. Customize plans: Account for comorbidities (renal, hepatic, diabetes), chewing/swallowing issues, and cultural preferences.
4. Leverage supplements: Add oral nutrition supplements when meals can’t meet goals; reassess tolerance and adherence.
5. Team up: Collaborate with a registered dietitian for complex cases and ongoing adjustments.
6. Monitor and adapt: Tie nutrition changes to wound progress and functional gains; refine frequently.

Food is therapy—dose it thoughtfully, track the response.

How to Display Nutritional Counseling Skills on Your Resume