As the population in the United States continues to age, there's an increasing demand for nurses, especially those skilled nurses with advanced education and training. With the spiraling costs of health care, nurses are becoming more and more crucial to health care delivery. Doctors are becoming more and more specialized and are spending less time with patients while nurses are stepping up to provide more direct health care to patients than ever before. What does this mean for your prospective nursing career? It means that with a 4-year degree in nursing, you'll have one of the highest starting salaries in any field, and with more schooling, you'll have the potential to earn over $100,000 per year.
Careers in nursing can be flexible and wide-ranging. You can find work in hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers or other extended-care facilities. You might work with a private practice physician, at a community health agency, a federal nursing agency, in industry, business, schools or in the armed forces.
Your work can include everything from actual patient care like changing IVs, replacing bandages, giving medications, and seeing to the general comfort of patients, to administrative, management, research roles or operating room assistance. Many nurses continue to expand their career options by furthering their education beyond the basics required to become a Registered Nurse. There are dozens of specialized fields of nursing. Some of the most popular include: Nurse Anesthesiologist, School Nurse, Forensic Nursing, Pediatric Nursing, Critical Care Nursing, Psychiatric Nursing, and Neonatal Nursing.
There's now a new trend in entrepreneurial nursing, where licensed nurses combine other specialty skills to form businesses. Possibilities include nursing informatics (combining nursing and computers), Legal Nurse Consulting (combining nursing and law), or a range of home health care businesses.
The outdated notion of the female nurse in white starched uniform handing instruments to the male doctor has given way to a new world where an increasing number of nurses are male. Nurses are involved directly in providing patient care. Whatever your career choice in nursing, due to the nurse shortage in the U.S. and the revolution in healthcare delivery, you can be sure that the more education you have, the more demand you'll find for your skills and the more highly you'll be paid.