There are so many careers to choose from—you can even make up your own if you want to and if you can make money from it, whatever it might be, why pick nursing above anything else? What is it about this particular career—a career that is extremely difficult, mentally and physically exhausting, and that requires you to study hard for degrees such as a DNP—that makes it ideal for so many people? Read on to gain a little more insight into just why a career in nursing is one of the best, and why it might suit you perfectly after all.
There Is Lots Of Choice
In the past, nursing was a lot less flexible than it is today, and there would be lots of shifts that covered weekends, holidays, and nights, too. Although these shifts are, of course, still required, there is much more flexibility and much more choice in the nursing field than ever before, allowing more and more people to pick nursing as a viable career. Add to this the extra degree courses such as the DNP, and you can see that nursing is different now. So, what has changed?
- Hours
Your nursing schedule can often be adapted to fit around your other commitments in life, whatever they might be. So, although a standard nursing shift is 12 hours, you might be able to work on a part-time basis, covering eight hours, for example. Or you might be able to request that you don’t work nights, or other hours that would be impossible for you to do; or you can work the shifts that you are given and enjoy the freedom that not having to work a normal 9-to-5 kind of job offers you.
- Location
The beauty of having a career in nursing is that you can work anywhere you want to. If you’re moving, even all the way across the country, you will still find that nurses are needed wherever you end up living. You’ll always have a job since nursing skills are deemed transferable.
- Specialities
There is even choice when it comes to the type of nurse you want to be. Although you will start off as a registered nurse (RN) like everyone else, you can then choose whether to stay in general nursing or whether to specialize in an area that particularly interests you. You’ll need to keep studying if that’s the case, but with online courses offering a DNP and other qualifications, this shouldn’t be difficult to do.
Opportunities For Career Mobility
When you are an RN or a nurse practitioner and you hold a DNP or other advanced nursing degree, you will always have options, and there is plenty of career mobility to enjoy as a nurse.
In other words, no matter what you want to do, you will have the chance to do it. You can move from department to department trying different areas of nursing to see what works best for you. Not only is this useful if you are looking for an area to specialize in, but it is also expected by your employers. They will want to see that you can adapt to different areas and do different work.
However, you can also use the knowledge you gain to work outside of the hospital environment if that is what you want to do. If the legalities of medicine interest you, you can work in the legal system because your nursing degree and DNP qualification will give you a good start. The same is true if you choose to work for yourself and set up your own business, for example.
Many Learning Opportunities
There are seemingly endless learning opportunities to enjoy when you are a nurse. You can go back to school—learning online to gain your DNP if that is a route you want to take. However, you can also pick up new skills and knowledge while you are working if you are always looking out for opportunities. You won’t gain recognized qualifications in this way, but you will be able to build up your experience levels, and this is just as important in its own way.
Every day is different when you are a nurse, and most of the time you just aren’t going to know what you are going to be faced with. This is why there are so many learning opportunities; if you need to deal with a situation you have never come across before, you will be able to learn just what to do, and this will stand you in good stead for the next time a patient has a similar complaint or you need to carry out the same procedure on someone else.
Working With Others
Although, as with anything in life, you will be ultimately responsible for the work you do, as a nurse you will always have the chance to work with others in a collaborative atmosphere. Nurses work in teams, and these teams are incredibly close. They have to be because they need to work together to save lives, and to make lives better.
Not only will you be working with other nurses, but you will be working with doctors, too. Your DNP qualification will mean you need to be able to liaise between a doctor and the patient, giving everyone the right information. You’ll need to be able to speak to the doctor in professional terms, and then “translate” the technical information into layman’s terms for the patient. This is a skill that not many will be able to employ, but nurses have to do this every day.
Being able to work in a team like this makes going to work every day much more enjoyable and satisfying. Knowing there are people there who will understand everything you are going through and who will help you just as much as you help them is a rare perk of the job, and one that nurses can enjoy to the utmost.
There Are Abundant Leadership Opportunities
When it comes to patient care, having the right kind of leaders within the nursing sector is crucial. There will always be plenty of leadership opportunities in nursing because there are more and more positions being created all the time. Good leadership is what will continue to make the entire nursing profession a smooth and successful one in which to work.
Even if you can’t see yourself as a leader and don’t want to be one, the fact that there are many leadership opportunities for others is still an attractive feature of a nursing a career. This is because, with other people who are qualified and able to do a good job in leadership roles, your career will be smoother and more successful, too. You will always have someone to look up to and a goal to work towards. Plus, if you have any questions or need any help, knowing you have a good leader to talk to will make all the difference. No nurse will ever need to feel alone.
You Can Join Later In Life
The wonderful feature of nursing is that you can join this career at any stage of your life. Some people choose to become nurses right out of high school and immediately start working towards their DNP. Others might start in one career and then decide that nursing is actually what truly interests them, so they switch. Some people may have retired but have a feeling that they want to get back into the workplace in some way, and nursing could be the ideal choice for them, as they can work shorter hours and choose a location that is close to home to make life easier.
If you have always wanted a career that involves helping other people in many different ways but you have never had the chance, becoming a nurse later in life would allow you to achieve this. Not only will you have more time to study for your online DNP, but you will also have plenty of life experience to bring with you into the job. This is why older nurses are needed and wanted by employers.
There Is A Demand
The nursing shortage is a real issue and is causing a potential crisis in a number of different areas. By training to become a nurse, you are alleviating some of this problem—it is said that just one more RN can save another five lives, so you can see that your personal contribution definitely makes a difference.
This nursing shortage also means that you will always have a job. You don’t have to worry about cuts or applying for the one open position and missing out. There will always be nursing opportunities that you can take, and once you are settled you can enjoy the great job security that goes along with it. No healthcare setting is going want to let its nurses go, especially those with a great deal of training and experience.
You Help People For A Living
When you help someone, you feel good about it. Helping someone releases endorphins in the body, and these chemicals boost your mood, making you feel happy. It’s why it feels so good to volunteer, for example.
When you are a nurse, you help people for a living. You’ll be helping many different people every single day, so of course you will feel amazing because of it. That’s not to say there won’t be sad or frustrating times to counterbalance this feeling, because there will be, and nursing is a hard job, too. However, the fact that you can help people on a daily basis just by being there for them and doing your job is a wonderful—and rare—quality, and should definitely inform your decision when it comes to becoming a nurse.
Good Earning Potential
We can’t talk about a career without also talking about the earning potential it has. Many people have the idea that, even with a DNP, nursing doesn’t pay very well, but this is not necessarily the case. You can earn a reasonable amount as a nurse practitioner or an RN, and you can earn even more if you specialize in a certain area.
You might not like to think about the money side of the job if you are going into nursing in order to help others and be a good person, but no matter how altruistic you are, you are still going to need to pay the bills and eat; so if you can earn a reasonable salary at the same time as getting paid to help others it would be even better, and that’s exactly what nursing can offer you.
Technology Is Changing Nursing
With the advent of new technology, the nursing profession is changing rapidly. One advantage of technology is that it can help nurses with their day-to-day tasks, therefore speeding up the process of what they are doing and helping them to see additional patients and help more people. This will mean that more time will have to be spent on learning about these pieces of equipment and the new technology that comes with them, but the fact that it will help out should make it a more interesting learning experience.
Technology will also mean that nurses can have additional career paths to explore. Informatics, for example, is a relatively new area of nursing, and one that would not have been made possible if it wasn’t for new technology. If you like the idea of helping people in nursing but you are also keen to work in a more technologically advanced field, you should be able to do both once you have your DNP.
Nurses Are Well Respected
If you want a career in which you will be respected and that people admire, nursing could be exactly what you are looking for. Even for those who don’t know much about nursing at all—if anything—they understand that nurses do a hugely important job and that they need to have respect at all times.