Are You Thinking About Nursing as a Career?

Are you contemplating a career change or are you just starting out in life wondering what profession to venture into? If you like challenges, excitement, people and a love for life, then becoming a registered nurse may be the right profession for you.

Nurses Can Choose Where They Want to Work

As a registered nurse, you will have the opportunity to choose where you want to work, the type of facility you would like to work in and when you want to work. You'll have these choices because registered nurses are needed in many places twenty-four-hours a day, seven days a week.

Many Branches Within the Field of Nursing

Nursing is a unique profession with many different paths. You will have the option of choosing to work with either infants and children, teenagers, adults or elderly people. Facilities where you can work may be a hospital, school, psychiatric facility, nursing home, a place of business or you may choose to work as a home care nurse. There are many options in the profession of nursing.

High Tech Nursing

Now many home care agencies are participating in an exciting program that's called telehealth. It is a high tech closed circuit media system where you, as a nurse, can actually talk to and see your patients via a tele-system set up from your home to theirs or from the nursing agency to their home.

There is another relatively new high tech field of nursing called nursing informatics where nurses compile research data and process it into ways which will benefit patient care and outcomes.

Travel Nursing

Travel nursing is an exciting field to work in. As a travel nurse you will be able to work assignment in almost any state in the U.S. and in some countries overseas. Travel nurses receive a lucrative salary with excellent benefits. Most travel agencies pay their nurses a generous stipend for living expenses in addition to their salary.

Education Required to Become a Registered Nurse

To become a registered nurse requires much study and patience. However, if you have the desire and drive to tackle the collegiate work required, you will succeed with your studies.

To be able to work as a registered nurse, you will have to either earn an associate's degree in nursing or a bachelor's degree in nursing from an accredited college. After completing your course of study and earning your degree, you then have to sit for and pass the NCLEX exam for your professional registered nurses license. Many nursing students are choosing to attend a university and earn a master's degree in nursing, which will give them numerous options in the medical field.

If you choose to pursue a two-year associate's degree program in nursing, after you graduate you'll have the option to work as a registered nurse and earn your bachelor's degree online through an RN to BSN program, if you so desire.

There are many advantages to having a bachelor's degree in nursing and one day, the bachelor's degree many be the minimum education required to be eligible to sit for the NCLEX exam. A bachelor's degree nurse has the same clinical skills as a registered nurse; the only difference is that a nurse with a BSN has more theory-based knowledge and is prepared to work in research, administration and supervisory areas.

Higher Education

Obtaining a master's degree in nursing will allow you to work as a nurse practitioner. As a nurse practitioner, you will be able to work independently in your own practice or in a group practice with other primary care providers. Nurse practitioners are educated to diagnosing and treating less complicated diseases and illnesses. They are also able to prescribed medications.

Many nurses are now attaining a PhD. With a doctorate degree, nurses can work closely with politicians on policies and government issues on either a state or federal level concerning health care.

Talk to a Career Counselor at Your Local College

If you think you may have an interest in nursing, talk to a guidance counselor at your local community college or university. They are always happy to go over the prerequisites to the program and will be able to design a class schedule to suit your needs.