Careers in Nursing

Determining a future career path should begin with examining your strengths and beliefs and matching these with the personal characteristics and skills required for the career you are exploring.

If you strongly believe that your life’s work is to provide service to others and to help those in need, nursing is a career that you may wish to consider. If your strengths include acceptance of responsibility, communication with others, thinking and acting quickly, and good critical thinking skills, you may have the attributes to become a registered nurse, a career with boundless opportunities for work and career growth.

Nurses touch lives in many ways and in so many situations: in birth and death, in times of suffering and loneliness, during rehabilitation and recovery. Each minute of their day, the nurse provides comfort, protection, education and guidance to patients and families. Nurses work to keep people healthy, prevent disease, and direct their expertise to the physical, social, psychological, and spiritual needs of their patients. The reward for the nurse is that each and every day his or her care makes a positive difference in people’s lives.

Nursing is the largest health care occupation with more than 2.6 million registered nurses in the U.S. Future job opportunities will be plentiful. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the nation has a serious nursing shortage. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment for nurses will grow at a faster rate than the average of all occupations through 2008.

In order to become a Registered Nurse (RN), you must graduate from a nursing program and successfully pass a national licensure exam (NCLEX). Once you become an RN, the job opportunities are endless. Today, more than ever, nurses are needed nationwide and may select jobs in many different settings and specialty areas. Also, because of the shortage, nurses have great flexibility in changing areas of practice and can go in any direction they choose.

Most nurses are needed in acute care hospital settings. In the hospital, different areas of nursing practice include caring for children, pregnant women, adults and the elderly, patients with mental health problems, and caring for patients who require rehabilitation.

Nurses may practice in specialty departments such as critical care, emergency room, operating room and recovery room. They may work with patients with cancer, orthopedic injuries, neurological injuries, cardiovascular surgery, transplants, burns, and general medical or surgical problems.

With the increase in life span due to medical advances and improved technology, growth in home care nursing and in long term care settings has occurred. Other practice settings include public health, clinics, schools, wellness centers, and health-related industries.

Starting salaries for entry level nurses range from $34,000 to $38,000 a year. With additional money for off shifts and weekends, sign-on bonuses, flexible work schedules, and educational reimbursements, nursing offers financial security and an above average standard of living.

Requirements for entry into schools of nursing include a high school diploma and academic success in algebra, chemistry and biology. Many hospital-based schools of nursing require pre-entrance standardized exams. College and university programs expect completion of prerequisite college courses before entry into the nursing major.

The nursing profession offers three types of registered nursing programs. The graduates of each of these programs take the same licensure exam to become a RN. All three of these programs prepare entry-level RNs who are prepared to assume the same level of responsibility and accountability. Entry-level salaries are the same for all three program graduates or vary only by a little.

One type of education program is the hospital-based program where students have most of the classroom and clinical practice in the hospital in which the school is established. Focus in this type of program is upon nursing courses and clinical experience. Hospital-based programs offer non-nursing courses which support the study of nursing and which are taught by faculty of an affiliated college. These programs provide a diploma in nursing and are usually 2 1/2 years in length.

Another type of nursing educational program is the associate degree nursing program, which is offered in community or junior colleges. This program takes 2-3 years to complete, depending upon completion of prerequisite courses and provides an associate degree in nursing (ADN). The associate degree program offers liberal arts and nursing curriculum and assigns the students to outside settings close to campus for clinical experience.

The third type of educational program is the 4-year college or university program, which provides a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing (BSN). Students enter the nursing program upon completion of college courses and usually begin clinical practice at the end of the sophomore year. With a BSN, the nurse is more likely to assume positions of management and leadership. A BSN is required for entry into a master’s of science in nursing program.

With a Master of Science in nursing (MSN), a RN can practice at an advanced level and become a nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist, and nurse midwife or nurse anesthetist. A MSN is also required for most positions in nursing education. The highest level of education is nursing in the Ph.D. in nursing, which prepares nurses for research and professorship in colleges and universities.

With either a diploma in nursing or an ADN, you can readily enter a RN to BSN nursing program offered by many local colleges and universities at satellite campuses. In a RN to BSN program, you will not need to retake any course work that was already completed. Completion of the BSN requirements may occur while working as a RN and using the tuition reimbursement offered by most health institutions.

The type of entry level nursing program you select depends upon the length of time you wish to devote to your studies, how quickly you wish to enter the nursing workforce, the cost of the program, preference for the campus setting, and preference for the amount of clinical practice and focus upon nursing studies.

One of the best ways to judge the quality of a nursing school is to find out the percentage of graduates of the school who pass the national exam on the first try. Schools with high percentage rates are usually schools which perform well in preparing the student for the workforce.

Editorial provided by Joanne Sperry, Director of Mercy Hospital School of Nursing; Nursing, Patient, Community Education Department.