Nursing has been an integral part of the health care industry for a long time. Today, a nurse has many opportunities available to her – in hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics, and home health agencies. In fact, nurses make up one of the largest occupational categories in the United States. You can work with people all over the world in hospitals and clinics, and you’ll likely have plenty of job security.
While nursing jobs have many job possibilities, it’s important to understand the skills and responsibilities that go along with these jobs. Many nurses want to be involved in patient care and education, but they also want to work in the administrative side. If you have a desire to care for the sick and the elderly, or work with children, there are opportunities for you.
If you’re just beginning your career as a nurse, you may have dreams of being a registered nurse (RN), or becoming a certified nurse (CN) after high school. Well, good news: Nurse training is a great field for people who are just entering into the nursing industry, or who already have no job experience in nursing. Whether you take some time out to finish some schooling or just get your certification, you’ll find that your first entry into this field can be more accessible to other careers because you’ll already have some basic knowledge about nursing.
However, if you want to advance your career, you’ll want to be able to go beyond the basic level of training and into advanced nursing programs. Once you get your certification, you can work in different types of hospitals and clinics. You can work as an RN, CNA, LPN, BSN, PHN, or even become an administrator for a specific department within a hospital.
The higher you move up the ladder, the more duties you’ll have to perform, including working directly with the patients and supervising the nurse’s assistants (NAs). Nurses who work with the patient’s on an inpatient or emergency basis can work in a lot more detail than nurses who work with them in a regular setting, so they need to be able to do more than just take a blood test or help them to the bathroom. These nurses must also be able to communicate with doctors and other nurses, coordinate medical procedures, and be able to keep a steady flow of patients through a hospital. If you are interested in getting an advanced nursing degree or a Master’s of Nursing Practice, you can learn how to give a lot of your job responsibility to a nursing team of assistants.
Even with a Bachelor’s degree, though, nurses can be a source of income, depending on where they work. If you choose a nursing program that offers an Associate of Science in Nursing (ASN) or Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program, you can go on to become a registered nurse. This will allow you to work as an administrative nurse at a clinic or hospital or an assistant at a physician’s office.
Other nursing programs lead to advanced degrees in nursing or graduate degrees in nursing, such as a Master’s of Science in Nursing (MSN) and PhD in Nursing (MSN). For nurses who want to specialize in a particular area of nursing, they can take a Master’s in Nursing Science (MSc) course or Doctorate in Nursing Science (DNS). There are a number of nursing programs that combine the two, but these are only available for certain nurses who already have an interest in one or two areas of nursing. However, if you can prove that you are a good fit for one of these programs, you could end up with a rewarding career as a nurse you could call your own.
