Nursing: A Rewarding Career

Nursing is a most rewarding career. While the economic outlook and rising unemployment are troubling these days, nurses are in demand. But it is not just the job security that makes nursing a good career choice. Nurses have the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives, to care and connect every day.

Registered nurses are independent professionals, licensed by the state and legally responsible for their own practice. Their role in health care combines science and technology with the more personal arts of healing, counseling, and education. A career in nursing is open to men and women, young people graduating from high school, and adult learners re-entering the work force or changing careers.

Nursing offers its practitioners enormous flexibility. Nurses are among the few professionals who can choose to work almost anywhere in the world. Jobs are available in urban centers, small cities, resort towns, suburban communities, and rural areas, as well as in the armed services, the Peace Corps, and overseas. Nurses are among the few professionals who can select their schedules and modify them to fit their own changing needs. Nurses can work full or part time, by the day, the week or the month. They can work eight or twelve hours a day and select from night, evening, or day shifts.

The majority of nurses work in a hospital setting, from patient care units to executive offices. Although most are staff nurses, their roles may be strikingly different.

• A neonatal intensive care nurse suctions a critically ill infant weighing less than 2 pounds.

• A psychiatric nurse calms a man suffering from hallucinations.

• A nephrology nurse monitors a young man who has received a kidney transplant.

• A utilization review nurse examines patient records for reimbursement costs.

• An orthopedics nurse teaches an elderly woman how to manage the cast on her broken leg.

• A discharge planning nurse reviews records to determine what services a patient will need when he or she returns home.

• An operating room nurse assists at open heart surgery.

• The emergency room charge nurse aids a trauma victim.

• A staff development specialist explains infection control procedures to newly hired employees.

• An oncology nurse administers chemotherapy to a teenage leukemia patient.

• An obstetrics nurse guides a first-time mother through the birth of her child.