Nurses provide care in hospitals, clinics, homes, and facilities. They work tirelessly to help patients heal and improve their quality of life. It’s a respected career that is both rewarding and meaningful. You get to take care of people and nurse them back to health. It involves a hands-on approach and requires building relationships with patients. Another great advantage to being a nurse is the opportunity to advance your career. You can seek postsecondary education to earn a higher salary. Or you can try working in a different field of nursing if your interests change in the future. Below, you’ll find different types of nurses and their salaries. Hopefully, these will help you determine if nursing is the career for you.
Intensive Care Unit Nurse ($92,472)
The intensive care unit, or the ICU, is an area of the hospital for patients that require critical care. Because it’s a matter of life and death, nurses in this specialty need to be well-prepared and learn a special set of skills. It requires working with patients that have life-threatening illnesses and monitoring their recovery. As an ICU nurse, you’ll have to administer treatment, monitor any subtle changes, manage the patient’s records, and implement a care plan to help them heal.
Geriatric Nurse ($65,870)
A geriatric nurse works with elderly patients. For example, a geriatric nurse might work at a hospital, in a patient’s home, or in an assisted living facility in Carthage, NY. Keep in mind, elderly patients require more care because they’re prone to trips and falls. This is why residential care facilities tend to be popular. They offer everything a senior citizen needs to feel independent while still being under the supervision of health care staff. Geriatric nurses also assess the cognitive abilities of their patients and educate them on how to manage any diseases or illnesses related to age.
Nurse Midwife ($106,910)
If you’re a registered nurse who loves prenatal care or obstetrics, then you may want to consider becoming a nurse-midwife. These highly-paid nurses work in offices, clinics, or hospitals where they specialize in assisting patients with childbirth. On a daily basis, they help people who are pregnant with the labor and delivery process from start to finish. Nurse-midwives differ from regular midwives because they are typically RNs first, that later obtain a second license to work as a midwife.
Emergency Room Nurse ($80,499)
The emergency room is a high-pressure environment. So, nurses that work within this field should have the ability to assess the needs of a patient quickly. They also have to respond to emergency situations in a calm manner to reassure patients who are in need of medical attention. Some of their daily duties include cleaning wounds, drawing blood, treating critical injuries, and making sure the patient check-in process runs smoothly. Nurses in this environment also need to be flexible because of the variety of situations they’ll face in the ER. It’s the job of an ER nurse to reassure patients that they’ll be treated properly and in a timely manner.
There are many different types of nurses, and if you’re interested in pursuing a degree in nursing, then you will find there are plenty of job opportunities and fields to explore. It’s a career that requires compassion for others, and there are many education paths you can take to get there. If you think that becoming a nurse is the right career path for you, then it may be a good idea to get additional information on collegiate nursing education. Different nursing professions will require different coursework and schooling. Regardless of which type of nurse you choose to become, you’re sure to have a long rewarding career helping other people.
