If you’re looking for a stable career, want to be able to help children grow and develop, and enjoy making a difference in people’s lives, becoming a nurse is a perfect choice.
It requires a significant amount of education and training to qualify for the role – but it also provides nearly limitless opportunities based on skills in different areas.
You may know that some nurses are required to have certifications or licenses before they can practice.
This usually means extra classes or training at the time of certification that’s still done later on while working as part of your job duties.
How To Get Into The Nursing Profession
In order to become a Registered Nurse (RN), you’ll often need to take additional training.
There are two types of RN degrees – Associate of Science (ASN) and Bachelor’s of Science (BSN).
They don’t require students to study anything beyond the fundamentals of nursing, so you could start as soon as you’re finished with high school or even college.
Specialist nurses also qualify for certification after they’ve graduated from an accredited program that takes a minimum amount of time – usually four years. There are a number of nursing schools in Canada, the US, and beyond.
Make sure to ask experienced nurses if you want to know more about their career paths – they can also offer valuable insights into this exciting profession.
From the basics, like educational requirements to your first job opportunities, here’s what you need to know about becoming a nurse.
Becoming A Pediatric Nurse: Education And Skills
Pediatric nurses can take a number of different routes towards certification.
Bachelors and Associates are the most popular and accessible options, but there’s also the Associate of Science in Nursing (ASN) or Certificate.
Typically, you’ll want to look into completing a pediatric nursing program, you have options like the pediatric acute care nurse practitioner programs online before going on to get a four-year degree from an accredited university or college – but this isn’t always the case.
You could also choose to go down the route of getting certified as an RN first with further specialization in pediatrics.
Certifications
The simplest way to get certified is to start in the field with RN training and then work towards the advanced certification – although this can be an expensive way to go.
The Certificate in Nursing Practice (CNP) is just one option.
It’s not necessarily necessary or even recommended since it’ll take you longer to become certified than it would if you started directly with a bachelor’s or Associate’s degree.
How long does it take? If you complete a two-year program but do not specialize in Pediatric Nursing, you will need many years of experience to be eligible for senior RN status (MNM).
How To Choose Which Nursing Specialties To Pursue In Your Professional Life?
Pediatrics is just one specialization for professional nurses to take, there are many other options available.
A nursing career offers a number of different specialties you’ll want to be aware of if they suit your personality and interests.
You could work in the home care field and collaborate with families, rather than treating pediatric patients in hospitals.
Some organizations may even let you focus on certain age groups – like newborns or young children.
If you prefer working with people, the public health nursing field is one option.
It’s a perfect fit if you want to make a difference in people’s lives and also enjoy helping others.
You can also find careers in which you’ll work with elderly residents, people with disabilities, or those who are chronically ill – working closely with healthcare providers and families.
The Nursing Administration field is one of the largest and is centered around management, whether it’s for an entire hospital or for a single unit.
You may work closely with physicians, nurses and administrators to make sure nurses’ needs are met as well as ensuring departmental goals are achieved from patients to budgeting to staffing.
How To Start Your Journey As A Nurse
Your most important job is to make sure a patient gets the care they need, safely and effectively.
Nurses are trained to do this in a number of different ways, some of which are covered in more detail below:
Patient Care And Direct Patient Care
The patient care portion of your job includes everything you do on a daily basis to ensure the health and wellbeing of patients:
For example, you’ll give patients their medication and monitor them for side effects or problems. You’ll examine patients’ vital signs, including blood pressure and temperature, as well as listen to their breathing or heart rate.
Patient Care And Automated Patient Care
You’ll also be involved in the entire process of providing care, whether it’s via the use of computers or other equipment.
For example, you’ll use electronic health records to help make charts with information about your patients shared between team members so that they can communicate more efficiently and make sure all bases are covered when a patient needs assistance or medication at any time during the day.
Teaching And Teaching Skills
Training nurses takes place at all levels – whether it’s through books, lectures, or other methods.
You’ll most likely be the one responsible for teaching others how to provide care. You’ll often teach new nurses before they take on patients and answer any queries you may have about your specialty.
The most common area of teaching is related to your main specialty, but you might also teach in other areas like operating room procedures or home health care techniques. You may even be asked to provide educational materials or run a training seminar.
Consultations And Other Consultatory Work
You might be asked to provide consultation in your area of specialty, whether it’s related to education or research, in the field via phone or in person.
Since you work with people every day, you don’t need much-specialized training to give medical advice; however, you may need more formal clinical training to make sure you understand your patients’ medical history.
You may also be asked to participate in patient research, like when your hospital is developing new treatments and researching their effectiveness.
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