subject: Nursing: The Best Choice When Switching Careers [print this page] Nursing: The Best Choice When Switching Careers
Many industries have been affected by the economic crisis that our country is currently experiencing, but the health care industry is definitely not one of them. While some businesses have been closing, or laid off a lot of employees, health care institutions continuously seek more employees, specifically nurses. This situation is caused by the nursing shortage that the industry is encountering. Shortage equals great demand, an easy explanation why you will surely get a job after you graduate, should you decide to become a nurse, particularly a registered nurse (RN). Experts agree that the demand for nurses will remain the same for a very long time, for 10 years or more, another good reason to pursue and obtain an RN career degree.
Registered nurses are trained to carry out several and diverse duties, like recording numerous types of data concerning a patient's condition, caring for patients, various testing measures and reading the outcomes, therapy sessions for patients who require them , and assisting doctors by handling different medical equipments. RNs also study so that they will be knowledgeable with regard to proper nutrition, symptoms of different diseases, physical therapy, and can diagnose simple illnesses, like colds and flu. Typically, RNs supervise the training or the clinical practice of certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs). From them, these assistants would learn a great deal more about nursing, so that in case they have plans to pursue further studies to become RNs themselves, they already had a crash course from experience.
Education requirement of an RN is to finish a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), which usually lasts for four years, at a university, community colleges, and even online schools. After graduation, interning years at a hospital follows. RNs, just like doctors, have the option to specialize in a particular field, such as ambulatory care nursing, surgical nursing, post-operative nursing, geriatric nursing, and many more others. Some of the most popular specialization include pediatric nursing, or the caring for infants and small children; forensic nursing, wherein you will assist in examining and caring for patients who suffered a serious injury, or those who have been abused; and nurses that you see in intensive care units are called critical care nurses. They are there because they were trained to handle the care and management of people who needs to be carefully monitored 24-7, because they are severe cases.
RNs, because of the training they went through, as well as the work they are required of, enjoy having high salaries, and various benefits. They are one of the highest paid jobs in the health care industry. Switching to an RN career will surely help you stabilize your future financially. Aside from RNs, LPNs and CNAs are also greatly in demand. If you are working at present, you don't need to resign, you can just study online because they have LPN careers online schooling, as well as offer CNA careers online education. Like I mentioned above, you can also earn your RN career degree online, click here to find out more about it.
