When it comes to meaningful and rewarding career options, you may know that nursing is considered to be one of the best. Even to an outsider, it can be clear to see how nursing might be such a rewarding and satisfying career choice, as nurses spend their time helping other people and being there for the people who need them the most. When you are a nurse, your patients rely on you to provide them with the best quality care, and you may be responsible for a lot of actually lifesaving work. For many patients who spend time in the hospital or find themselves in an emergency medical situation, a nurse is one of the first friendly faces that they will see.
Emotional Rewards
Nursing is a very emotionally rewarding career as you know the meaning behind the work that you do. Being a nurse can be much more satisfying compared to many other career options since you know that working in this position gives you the option to make a real difference in the lives of the patients that you work with. It’s hard to beat the feeling that comes with knowing that you have had an important role to play in helping a patient who is injured or sick enjoy a full recovery. Nurses have a key part to play in the modern healthcare system, and healthcare as we know it would be very different without nurses. If you need to get medical care, it’s likely that a caring and kind nurse is going to be one of the first professionals to look after you and offer support for you. Being able to provide this support to a wide range of people and be remembered for it can leave nurses with a level of personal and emotional satisfaction in their work that is hard to find elsewhere.
Academic and Career Rewards
Working as a nurse is not only rewarding in terms of knowing that you have been there to support, help and make a difference to others. When you get into a nursing career, you can also enjoy a wide range of academic and professional rewards with lots of options to take your career further and earn advanced qualifications such as this online DNP program from Baylor University. Whether you want to get into advanced practice and continue working at the patient bedside or are interested in leadership, management, research, administrative, or even education roles as a nurse, there are opportunities for everybody that you can work towards and achieve.
Social Rewards
Working in nursing gives you the chance to meet new people all the time. As a nurse, you will be able to work with a team of like-minded healthcare professionals who are all there for similar reasons to yourself. Nurses and healthcare professionals do work long hours, but the people that you are working with will help boost your morale, and often, people who work in healthcare make some of their best friends in the workplace. Along with this, nurses also get the chance to meet and build relationships with patients on a daily basis. When you work as a nurse, you get the chance to meet people from all backgrounds and walks of life and help out anybody that comes through the door.
Financial Rewards
For many nurses, the money is not the first thing on their mind when they decide that this is the career path that they want to take. However, it is always easier in life when you are paid well for the work that you do, and nursing offers some very generous salaries. Today, there is a growing demand for nurses for a range of different reasons including a nursing shortage, an aging population, and a global pandemic, leading to a chance that nursing salaries might be rising in order to try and attract more people to join and stay in this position.
Currently, registered nurses earn an average annual salary of around $75k, and there are plenty of options to boost your earnings even further by getting an advanced degree and working in a role such as nurse practitioner or nurse manager. Some states pay nurses even more generously, with nurses earning over $80k per year in Connecticut, Washington, Nevada, and Jersey. In Nevada in particular, nurses do not have to pay any state income tax.
How to Get into Nursing
If you want a career that is very rewarding in pretty much every way, becoming a nurse might be an ideal choice for you. Nurses are needed everywhere you go, so it’s never hard to find work in a huge range of different settings. There are various pathways to consider to qualify as a registered nurse, including:
Associate’s Degree
An associate’s degree offers the fastest pathway into nursing, but bear in mind that it may not always be the best option for nurses who want to progress in the future, as this qualification may not always be enough to get onto advanced degree programs. While this degree program will qualify you to take the NCLEX and get your license to work as a nurse, you may find that it is harder to get work compared to in the past since more and more employers are looking for BSN-educated nurses.
Bachelor’s Degree
While it takes longer and may involve more work in comparison to an associate’s degree, getting a bachelor’s degree in nursing is a worthwhile move to get your career started. This four-year degree program is usually the minimum requirement to enrol on advanced degree programs like the MSN, nurse practitioner degree programs, and BSN-DNP bridge programs. You will also typically find it easier to find employment as a larger number of employers are hiring BSN-educated nurses due to the fact that they have a more positive effect on patient care and patient outcomes.
If you want a career that is rewarding in a range of different ways, including personal and emotional rewards, the chance to meet new people, and the option to achieve more things and progress in your career, nursing could be ideal for you.
