If nursing is your passion, why not go back to school? It seems every other nurse is doing just that, and it’s no surprise. An advanced education offers many benefits. For instance, here are five ways that going back to school to become a Nurse Practitioner can take your career to the next level. 1. Open doors to new opportunities: An advanced education ...

Looking for a career change? Health care is one of the fastest growing professions out there, but every day, prospective students are being turned away because of a lesser-known shortage: there aren't enough Nurse Educators to teach them all! As a nurse, you are already ahead of the curve if you're interested in becoming a Nurse Educator. After all, you ...

Yes. It can and does happen. Contrary to popular belief and myth, there really are male nurses out there! And yes, we do encounter discrimination every so often – some greater than others, and some more severe. I can remember when I first made the decision to be a nurse… “You want to be a Murse?” “I guess you didn’t want ...

We all know that “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” Nursing students who are taught nursing skills one year will lose some of those newly found skills over the summer vacation. Some experts say it only takes two weeks to begin losing dexterity for a new skill. So, many nursing programs run “skills labs” periodically to keep newly educated ...

Everyone knows the difficulty in getting into nursing educational programs. The problems with overcrowding in nursing programs have given rise to the use of lotteries and waiting lists. What prospective student has not experienced the problems inherent in waiting and waiting to enter an institution? And we all know the reason. The lack of nursing faculty has diminished the numbers of ...

It is so great that you have decided to follow your dream and become a nurse. Now what? How do you start? There are many things to consider when deciding to enter the nursing field. Do you want to specialize? Is there an area of nursing that particularly “calls” to you? How will you support yourself and your family while you ...

Ever wonder what it's like to step into someone else's shoes for a day? Maybe you are considering nurses and want to get an insider's view of the industry. Or maybe you are already a nurse and want to understand what a different specialty is like. Here's your chance. Our Day in the Life... series will virtually take you into the ...

Is it possible for a profession to have an identity crisis? If so, then nursing does. Nurses frequently fight among themselves about who should be called a nurse, and they fight with the outside world about whether nursing is a profession or a trade. So which one is it? Is nursing a profession? Or a trade? The world needs tradesmen. Even ...

As an RN with several years’ experience in acute care nursing and supervision, along with more than two decades of experience in community health and education, my best advice to current nurses considering a leave from the field—for whatever reason— is to stay current with their license and skills. Even if that simply means working per diem one weekend per month, ...

I hear questions from people all the time about nursing, the education needed, the possibilities of advancement and the kind of person you need to be to become a great nurse. Here are a couple of those questions and as time goes on, I will add to this FAQ list, hoping to capture the questions you may have about this career ...

When you embark on choosing a school for your nursing education, there are many things to consider. Some of these include: cost, distance from home (if a campus based program), hours you have to devote to courses, comfort with the clinical rotation placements and whether the school is “accredited.” So, who does this “accreditation,” and what does it mean? There are ...

Chances are if you are interested in entering the nursing field, you want your life to count, you want to know you are contributing something valuable to another and you want to help people. Imagine the possibility of helping not just one person at a time, but your career contributing to the excellent care of dozens or hundreds of patients at ...

It is no big secret that the upcoming retirement of the baby boomers will put enormous strain on the health care industry. While this may not be great times for hospital management, qualified nurses are in high demand and enjoy many job benefits including sign on bonuses, tuition reimbursement, and retention bonuses. There are hundreds of career avenues for nurses, but ...

Whether looking to add meaning to their workdays or find a new vocation after being laid off from a foundering industry, career-changing professionals are increasingly turning to accelerated bachelor's programs in nursing. Accelerated BSN programs train folks with bachelor's degrees in other fields to be nurses in 12 to 18 months. The number of accelerated BSN programs has grown dramatically, from ...

Noopa Kurian already had a degree in travel management and a job in her field when she applied to the nursing program at Stony Brook University. What she says she didn't have was job security. "I wanted to know that wherever I go, I'll be able to find a job," said Kurian, 28, of Lake Grove, who expects to earn a ...

There is what they teach you in nursing school, and then there is what you learn in the ‘real world’ of nursing. Sorry my fellow student nurses, there IS a difference. I used to chuckle when the ‘seasoned’ nurse would make a comment like that when we were at clinicals during nursing school. Now I chuckle because they were so right. ...

Many nurses wonder with excitement what it would be like being a travel nurse? Like any career choice, the decision to become a traveling nurse should be a decision made with care and consideration. The truth is that there are many great things that a travel nursing career offers. However, travel nursing does have a downside and is important that nurses ...

Heading back to school for a nursing degree? Interest rates may be low for federal education loans, but don't let that lull you into complacency about the need for a budget, advises an article in a recent issue of Advance for LPNs. Among the commonsense advice in the article are these tips: [widget:340] • Send in your loan and scholarship forms ...

The nursing profession is expected to have a shortage of 1,000,000 nurses by 2016. With the dire need for new blood in the healthcare industry, there is a national push to start training the next generation of nurses who will provide aid and care to aging baby boomers. Because of this, nursing is one of the few recession-proof jobs in today's ...

Anyone who's completed nursing school can tell you where they floundered in their education. These could be big mistakes, such as choosing the wrong school, or small mistakes, like not "reading" an instructor very well. Nobody makes it through school without a few blunders, but if you follow these five rules of thumb, you should be able to avoid most of ...