Registered Nurse Career: Job Roles and Salary Outlook

Overview

Registered nurses (RNs) are nurses who work to promote healthcare by providing medical services to protect patients from disease and illness while simultaneously providing emotional and information support to family members.

If you have the desire to serve people to the fullest then you might want to opt for nursing, where you would work upon helping and taking care of patients. One could chose from many nursing careers such as hospital nurses who provide nursing care, or you could be a health home aide nurse providing nursing facilities at home. This line of work involves care and consideration when dealing with patients. The relationship between a nurse and patient is deep and both parties rely on trust.

Roles

If you are a registered nurse, you must be prepared to deal with just about everything and all sorts of stressors and tensions would be part of your job. You would work in different sections including physician’s offices, operating rooms, ambulatory care, intensive care, or healthcare clinics. The general responsibilities performed by registered nurses are operating and monitoring medical equipment, giving patient medicines and treatments, proposing and offering emotional support for patients and their families, helping perform diagnostic tests and analyzing results. They even work to promote general health by providing information on general issues. They may sometimes not work directly with patients but their job is to provide assistance to doctors. They might also work as health consultants or as a salesperson for pharmaceutical firms promoting medicines.

Salary and Job Outlook

Nursing is one of the fastest growing professions in the healthcare industry. Registered nurses work closely with physicians, in an environment that is continuously changing to meet people’s demand to provide the best healthcare. Registered nurses learn new ideas about technology and development and it is because of this that this field is witnessing accelerated growth. As it has been said by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment of nurses in 2010 was 2.7 million, being the largest healthcare occupation. On the other hand the trend shows that the employment rate is expected to rise over 26 percent from 2010 to 2020. If we talk about the pay then the median annual wage of registered nurses was $64,690 in May 2010.

Education Requirements

If you want to be a registered nurse, you would have to have an associate’s degree and a bachelor’s degree with a license that will allow you to practice. It is important that you sit through the relevant courses that will help you through your registered nursing degree or training in vocational schools. One must also go through managed employment at a clinic or a hospital because proper certification is often required by many employers including hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers and insurance companies.

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