Terri Ramsey Beavers If you’re looking for a career that provides you with a reliable income as well as high levels of job satisfaction, nursing may well be a viable and agreeable option for you. Every job role relies on demand, and when it comes down to it, we will always be in need of medical professionals, so almost any career in the medical field will provide you with reliable and consistent work, and consequently reliable and consistent pay! What’s more? When you enter nursing, you are having a profoundly positive impact on people’s lives, taking them in when they are vulnerable and helping them on the road to recovery. You will genuinely be changing people’s lives for the better! So, if this appeals to you, here’s everything that you could possibly need to know about a career in nursing!
Responsibilities
Nurses have a whole host of responsibilities. But here are just a few daily tasks that you may encounter when working in this field:
- Administering medication
- Administering injections
- Taking blood samples
- Taking urine samples
- Managing IV lines
- Monitoring patients’ conditions
- Recording patients’ conditions
Necessary Qualifications
Seeing as nurses have to have a competent understanding of the body, as well as specific training to be able to carry out the aforementioned tasks, they do need specific qualifications before they can work within a hospital or other medical facility. Generally speaking, all nurses will require at least a bachelor’s level of education in nursing. Those in more authoritative or specialist roles may need to have completed an MSN program. However, education tends to be paired up with hands-on workplace experience, so don’t worry – you won’t be stuck in the classroom all of the time.
Salary
When you’re considering any job role, you’re bound to be interested in what salary it pays. After all, no matter how dedicated you may be to any given role, you will also want to ensure that your work will allow you to maintain a good quality of life outside of the workplace. The good news is that the average registered nurse takes home around $73,550 on an annual basis. This averages out to around $35.35 an hour, which is significantly more than the standard US salary of $23.34 per hour.
Working Hours
Generally speaking, nurses will work eight-hour days. However, the number of hours that you work may be heavily dependent on your contract, who you work for, and how much demand there is for nurses in the area. As a nurse, you may find yourself carrying out voluntary overtime in periods of health crises.
Hopefully, this has helped you to get to grips with the basics of heading into a career in nursing. It may well be a high-intensity career choice, and you are likely to come into contact with individuals who are suffering on a daily basis. But you will go home and sleep soundly each night knowing that you have done your utmost to improve the experiences of everyone you have come into contact with!