Nursevillage.com - Career Resources - Nurses: Making the Choice to Care

Maryann works on drug trials for a large pharmaceutical company. Sue teaches mothers-to-be at a local community center about lead-poisoning issues. Allen accompanies heart transplant candidates on helicopter rides between medical facilities.

All these people are registered nurses (RNs). Surprised? Then you also may be surprised to learn that many of the more than 2 million nurses in the United States work in settings other than a hospital or doctor's office. You can find RNs in places like public schools, nursing homes, research labs, and even private residences.

What nurses do
No matter where they work, though, the job of an RN comes down to one thing: caring for patients. Nurses help prevent illness and heal those who are sick. They do this in a number of ways, including:

Assessing, observing, and attending to patients' physical and emotional conditions
Assisting physicians
Administering medications
Conducting or assisting in the research of new drugs
Educating people to help prevent disease or injury

To do any healthcare job well, RNs need a strong understanding of physical sciences and medical technology, combined with the ability to provide compassionate and quality care. Those who work in clinical settings, such as a hospital or nursing home, must be physically fit, as they stand for hours at a time and must move quickly to attend to patients' needs.

Clinical nurses may specialize in specific practice areas, such as pediatrics or emergency medicine. Almost all nurses take continuing-education courses throughout their careers to keep up with advances in the field or to learn new practice areas.

The job outlook
The evening news offers up depressing stories of high unemployment rates and massive layoffs. Well, here's some good news: Qualified RNs have little difficulty finding work, even in today's tough economy. The better news? This trend is expected to continue for several years.

The U.S. healthcare system is experiencing a dramatic rise in its need for qualified medical staff. Our elderly population is living longer and as they age, they need more medical care. At the same time, more than half of currently practicing RNs are expected to retire within the next 10 to 15 years. As these changes take place, the nursing shortage will only increase. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the nursing field will grow faster through 2010 than any other occupation.

Hospitals are experiencing a near-critical shortage of nurses, but the largest job growth in the healthcare field won't take place in these inpatient facilities. As the population ages and more medical procedures are conducted outside of hospitals, the majority of nursing positions will open up in home healthcare work, nursing homes, and outpatient clinics that offer such services as same-day surgery and chemotherapy.

Career paths
Not interested in a job that has you sitting in a cubicle, waiting five years for the corner office with a view? Then nursing is for you. There's no end to the number of career paths you can take-and few involve sitting at a desk from 9 to 5.

The variety begins as early as college. To become an RN, you can choose from more than half a dozen degree types and more than 1,500 nursing programs in colleges and universities across the country. (See our article on nursing school for more information.)

Then consider the number of practice areas in which nurses can specialize, from labor-and-delivery to geriatric nursing. And, if they choose, RNs can take continuing-education courses to learn new specialty areas at any point in their careers.

Here's just a sampling of the different kinds of jobs for nurses:

Hospital staff nurse
School nurse
Office nurse
Nurse midwife
Private duty nurse
College professor
Patient or community educator
Researcher

If the variety of career paths isn't enough, consider the employment options. Nurses may work part-time or full-time for a local hospital, or they may choose to do flexible per diem work for several facilities. For those who want to broaden their horizons, there's an opportunity to become a travel nurse and work for a few months at a time in hospitals around the country.

Working hours
Patients don't just get sick during the Monday-through-Friday, 9-to-5 working hours. The good and the bad of nursing is that it's a 24/7 world.

The potential downside of the typical clinical nursing schedule is that many nurses work odd hours, especially when they are first starting out. They may miss out on Thanksgiving dinner or find themselves on a night shift while their friends are heading out for an evening on the town.

But the around-the-clock working hours have an upside: Nurses may have more flexibility in scheduling, especially as they become more experienced. In a clinical setting, nurses' shifts are usually 8 to 12 hours long. A full-time nurse will generally work 36 hours in three days or 40 hours in four days. That's an intense schedule, but most nurses then will have three or four days off before beginning the next work cycle. That leaves a good chunk of free time that most occupations don't allow, and this flexibility and choice of shift times is especially helpful for nurses who have children in daycare.

Many non-clinical nursing jobs offer more conventional work hours. Outpatient facilities-such as community clinics, doctors' offices, or research labs-tend to follow more predictable schedules.

Income potential
You won't "get rich quick" as a nurse, but you can expect to earn a decent living. On average, entry-level nurses bring in salaries comparable to their peers who enter professions like teaching, marketing, or accounting.

Most nurses' salaries are based on their area of practice, where they live and work, and how much experience and education they have. For example, an RN in a large city probably will make more money than a nurse in a small rural town because of the difference in the cost of living.

The average RN can expect to earn between $37,870 and $54,000 per year. Here are some sample average salaries for different nursing occupations:

Hospital staff nurse: $45,780 per year
Home healthcare nurse: $43,640 per year
Nurse practitioner: $43,636
Travel nurse: $30 per hour
Per diem nurse: $35 per hour

Many employers, including travel and per diem agencies, offer a full range of benefits, such as retirement plans, paid vacations, and continuing-education reimbursement. In addition, because of the current nursing shortage, many facilities are offering generous sign-on bonuses and flexible schedules for qualified candidates.

Why choose nursing?
Nursing isn't for everyone. It requires an interest in physical sciences and medicine, the emotional and physical stamina to withstand the demands of patient care, and the patience to work within today's bureaucratic healthcare system.

But for those who have the passion to care for others, nursing offers unique professional, economic, and personal benefits. RNs are paid decently, the job market is wide open, and work schedules are generally flexible. The need to continually update one's education provides opportunities for lifelong learning (usually with monetary reimbursement), and the myriad degree programs can lead to a number of educational and career paths. (And it doesn't hurt that you feel great at the end of a long shift if you've made a patient smile or a sick child more comfortable.)

Most importantly, nurses become nurses because they feel they can contribute something positive to the world. Take a look at some of our "Real Nurse Stories" to get an idea of why people choose nursing. You may be surprised as you read about the different journeys and goals, but you'll see that each story has one thing in common: The featured nurses have made the choice to care.