Career Close-up - Registered Nurse (R.N.)
Information provided by Kaplan Test Prep

Projected growth through 2008: 22 percent

Number of jobs by 2008: 2,530,000

Salary: $29,000 to $69,000 (Highest pay in temporary or personnel supply services, lowest in nursing and personal care facilities.)

Job Outlook
While hospitals will continue to need nurses, the fastest growth will be in home health, long term care, and ambulatory care (doctors’ offices and clinics). As more complex medical procedures such as intravenous therapy (IV) are shifted to the home environment, home care nursing jobs will increase. The shift away from inpatient care will create new jobs in same-day surgery, emergency, chemotherapy, and rehab clinics. In nursing homes, R.N. jobs will increase 36 percent to meet the needs of the very elderly with Alzheimer’s disease, strokes, and heart problems. 25 percent of RNs work part time, and 10 percent hold more than one job.

Practice Settings

• Hospitals: in patient and outpatient departments (60 percent)
  
• Clinics, physicians’ offices, home health care agencies, nursing homes, temporary help agencies, schools, and government agencies (35 percent)
  
• Residential care facilities, social service agencies, religious organizations, research facilities, business and public relations firms, insurance agencies, and private homes (5 percent)

What Nursing is Really Like
RN’s work in every aspect of health care: disease prevention, health education and research, and direct patient care. They assist physicians and develop care plans. An increasingly important role for nurses is to teach patients and their families how to handle complicated home care processes, whether it’s taking care of surgical incisions or feeding a premature infant.

What You Need to Succeed as an RN
Nurses need the diplomacy of an ambassador and the patience of a saint. They are usually responsible for implementing doctors’ orders and coordinating the work of other care providers. They’re often the go-betweens who interpret the doctors’ orders to patients and families. As such, they must be able to bear the brunt of the anger and frustration that often comes with illness.

Nurses need the emotional stability to cope with human suffering and stress, says Jennifer Jacoby, R.N., M.S.N. “In hospitals they generally have to cope with a lot of hubbub. They need a high tolerance for multitasking. They have to enjoy being around people.”

Jacoby adds that nursing can be hard physical labor. It can also be emotionally exhausting, especially when dealing with patients suffering from abuse, violence, or serious physical deformities.

“A good nurse understands that the smallest things can make a difference, to their patients and to their coworkers. And it helps to admit when they don’t know something or when they need help.”

Career Ladder for Nurses

• Assistant head nurse and head nurse
  
• Health care management
  
• Nurse practitioner in a specialty such as geriatrics (elderly) or neonatology (newborns)
  
• Nursing certificate in advanced specialties such as nurse-midwife or anesthetist.

Information adapted from
Your Bright Future in Health Care
by Mary K. Kouri, MPH, Ph.D.
Published by Kaplan, Inc. and Simon & Schuster, 2002