Opportunities abound for nurses - Marine Corps News, pay, benefits, careers, entertainment, photos - Marine Corps Times HOME

Opportunities abound for nurses

However, shortages add stress to demands of job

Throw a dart into a map of the U.S. and wherever it lands, there's a nursing job nearby. Nursing is one of the nation's fastest-growing professions.

The system of health care delivery continues to change, altering everything from where and how people receive treatment to the amount of time patients spend with their doctors to greater demands for medical services. All of these factors have affected the role of nurses. Today, they're working in traditional clinical fields and well beyond, even traveling full time to fill short-term critical shortages.

If you're leaving the military with a nursing background, you're entering a field that has some 300,000 job openings — and better-than-ever salaries.

Diane J. Mancino is the executive director of the National Student Nurses Association. A registered nurse and doctor of education, she is responsible for the professional development and provision of educational resources and career guidance for the association's 45,000 members. She has served as executive producer of several documentaries on nursing and is the executive director of the association's foundation to promote nursing scholarships.

Mancino was recognized as one of Modern Healthcare magazine's 100 most powerful people in health care in 2004; last year, she received the Louise McManus Medal, the highest honor given by the Nursing Education Alumni Association.

Mancino offered some information for service members interested in second careers as civilian nurses.

• Q: How would you describe the career opportunities in the civilian side of nursing?

A: From bedside practice to leading health care organizations as top administrators, nurses enjoy a profession that offers a range of career opportunities. They can work as staff nurses, clinical specialists, nurse practitioners, administrators and educators, to name just a few options. They make up the largest health care occupation, with over 2.4 million registered nurses, and work in hospitals, private offices, long-term care facilities, home health care services and government agencies.

Most nurses begin their careers in hospitals, working as a staff nurse in critical care, medical/surgical areas, maternity and pediatrics, among other departments. As your career evolves, you may choose to practice in a specialized area such as emergency nursing, operating room nursing, coronary care, or intensive care specialties such as trauma, cardiac surgery, respiratory, pediatrics and newborn intensive care. Acute care involves critical thinking, technical skills and high-level decision-making in life-and-death situations.

In many institutions, including educational facilities and hospitals, nurses are responsible for implementing their organization's emergency response plans in the event of crises such as bioterrorism attacks, flu pandemics or natural disasters.

Nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists have master's degrees in advance practice nursing that involve advanced assessment skills and prescriptive privileges. Many have private practices.

Other advanced-degree nurses continue their educations to earn Ph.D.s or EdDs and lead the profession in policy-making, research and the administration of influential national and international institutions and organizations.

• Q: What does the job market look like?

A: The U.S. faces a critical nursing shortage. By the year 2020, the federal government is projecting a shortfall of over 800,000 registered nurses as practicing nurses, the majority of whom are baby boomers, begin to retire. The baby boomers are also expected to place an added burden on the health care system as they start to hit their 60s.

An increasingly complex and technologically driven health care system makes it vital that nurses are available to advocate high-quality care that their patients can understand. Many institutions find it challenging to fill vacancies, and [so] offer signing bonuses, flexible work schedules and other benefits. Some also provide tuition reimbursements for nurses pursuing advanced education opportunities. According to the Labor Department, the average salary for an RN in 2004 was about $52,000.

• Q: What are the challenges of being a nurse?

A: Nursing is undergoing a critical shortage, including a shortage of nursing educators. Enrollment in nursing school programs has increased over the last four years, but more than 30,000 qualified applicants were turned away from schools in 2005 because there were not enough nurse educators to fill vacant faculty positions in nursing schools.

Additionally, the nursing shortage forces many nurses in hospitals to work overtime and handle more caseloads than they normally would with adequate staffing. Without an effective support system, some of these critically needed RNs face burnout.

Another challenge often overlooked in the mainstream media is the stereotyped perception of the profession. From the angel imagery to the sexual, nurses face a series of negative portrayals only exacerbated by commercials, movies and TV shows. In these, nurses are often inaccurately depicted as physician's assistants, rather than independent professionals who, as men and women, work side by side with health care colleagues to provide effective patient care and advocacy.

• Q: What qualifications does someone need to get into a nursing program?

A: Three different types of nursing education programs enable you to take the State Board of Nursing Licensure Examination: the associate's degree in nursing program the baccalaureate degree in nursing program and the diploma hospital school nursing program.

Entrance requirements for nursing schools vary. All programs may require one or more of the following standardized entrance exams: the SAT or ACT test, the Pre-Nursing and Guidance Examination of the National League for Nursing, and the Entrance Examination for Schools of Nursing of the Psychological Testing Corporation. Each school establishes its own admission score.

For more information on nursing, visit the National Student Nurses’ Association.