A day in the life of a nurse
Nurses help prevent disease and injury and care for the sick and injured, but within these parameters, there are no limits to what the job can entail. “Nursing offers you the opportunity to do a million different things, in a million different places”. Nurses work in hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics, schools, corporations, and sometimes even in businesses of their own. While there are many different areas of specialization, some individuals are general nurses, who assist doctors by performing a variety of tasks as needs arise, and will often have secretarial duties as well if they work in HMOs or private offices.
More specialized nurses include surgical nurses, who ensure the sterility of instruments and assist doctors during surgery; obstetric-gynaecological nurses, who help to deliver babies; neonatal nurses, who care for newborns and teach new mothers how to feed their babies; nurse anaesthetists, who work with anaesthesiologists to provide proper sedation for patients; or psychiatric nurses, who care for patients with mental or emotional disorders. Occupational health nurses work at factories or other work sites to offer preventive education, and community or public health nurses spend time on the road to instruct various groups in their community on diverse health-related topics.
Another variety of nurse is the private duty nurse, who has only one patient in his or her charge and works in the patient’s home or in the hospital. These days, nurses with more advanced degrees handle many things that were once the sole province of physicians, such as treating some ailments and setting fractures. Nurse practitioners can even make diagnoses and write prescriptions. Clinical nurse specialists also have additional patient responsibilities in such areas as geriatrics or pediatrics, depending on the nurse’s speciality. Nurses can advance to become department heads or supervisors, overseeing other nurses as well as caring for patients.
Each facility also has a director of nursing, who establishes standards of patient care, composes the department’s budget, and advises other hospital employees on nursing issues. Nurses generally work in eight-hour shifts day and night, although some hospitals have recently been experimenting with having nurses work 10 or 12-hour shifts on three or four days a week. Communication skills are critical—nurses must listen well and be able to give clear directions to patients and aides.
How to become a nurse?
While for most beginning jobs the RN license opens the door, a BSN is necessary to be eligible for some supervisory positions. For the highest managerial positions or to teach in a nursing school, a master’s degree in nursing is the norm. Some specialties even require a doctorate degree. A background in science and liberal arts will serve future nurses well.
Nursing programs place a large amount of emphasis on science and math for obvious reasons, but liberal arts courses are also helpful, since nurses spend much of their time educating patients and staff. Registered nurses can rise to become supervisors, directors of nursing, and other managerial roles.
source: princetonreview
