By: Hyaal Wehab
As a current Pre-Nursing student, many of my free blog posts will be filled with information regarding nursing. As I get further into this project, I will begin to focus on the field of nursing that I would like to pursue, but for my first post, I will focus on talking about the information I have retrieved online about the basics of nursing.
The field of Nursing consists of multiple tasks, occupations and difficulties. A typical day in the life of a Registered Nurse (RN) not only consists of caring for patients of all ages, elderly or young, but also giving emotional support to their patients and the families of patients. Although most Nurses care for patients daily, their tasks also depend on the field they are concentrating and working in. For example, and Oncology Nurse would focus on work with cancer patients, while an Addiction Nurse works with patients that are looking to overcome an addiction with drugs, alcohol, etc., and Genetic Nurses work with patients with genetic disabilities while Neonatal Nurses work with newborn babies. While caring for patients, they also work with much of the machinery in the environments that they are working in, alongside many doctors, working as a team for the best care and results for their patients. Registered Nurses are known to be the largest, and growing health occupation due to the multiple fields available. It is said that employment for nurses will increase about 16% from 2014 to 2024. This is due to the continuous growth of the elderly population. Older patients require more care and medical attention than younger patients do, so this increases the demand for healthcare employees, providing more job opportunities for Registered Nurses all over. Also, easier access to healthcare leads to an increase of patients seeking medical attention, so this promotes an increase in jobs and demand for nurses and other healthcare occupations. Along with multiple different fields of work to choose from, Registered Nurses also work in many different settings. General settings include Hospitals, Physician’s offices, nursing homes, even in the military. Sometimes, nurses even travel to different homes,schools, etc. Depending on a nurses placement or position, they can work up to twenty-four hour shifts, and even work on weekends, holidays, and also be on call. A Registered Nurses’ occupation level or placement can also depend of the level of education they have acquired. All Nurses must atleast have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), or an Associate degree in Nursing (ASN), acquire a nursing license, and also have supervised clinical experience. In order to become a licensed nurse, nursing students must be accepted to and graduated from an approved nursing school, and they must also pass the National Council Licensure Exam (NCLEX-RN). Most higher-scaled nursing occupations require at least a BSN (four year program), but nurses that hope to take on managerial positions, or higher positions in a specific field will go on to receive a master’s degree. Also depending on the level of a nurse's degree or occupation, the median wage nurses anually make is about $67,490, while the lower 10% make about $46,360 annually, and the top 10% make about $101,630 annually.
The information provided above all came from an article, which I will post the direct link at the bottom of this post. This article was very helpful and it helped me reach a deeper understanding about multiple different aspects of nursing whether it was wages, education, work hours, or even the basic duties of a Registered Nurse. Reading this gave me a better understanding of what type of degree I should acquire and if whether I should continue to a higher degree of education after receiving a BSN. Next time I post a free write, I hope to find out more about the different parts of each field. What exactly does a nurse do in each field beside care for patients? Does the pay differ depending on the difficulty of the field? How does a person know if they are best fit for that environment? These are just a few of the things I hope to learn about. I hope this post is of assistance or provides extra information to current or future nursing students as well as it did to me.
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