There is a wide plethora of far-reaching and life-enhancing reasons to complete your training and become a state registered professional nurse. Such a decision will afford you a variety of professional benefits and a number of personal ones.
With that being said, continue reading to discover the top ten reasons to become a professional and registered nurse.
Nursing Presents the Opportunity to Make a Significant Difference to Everyday Lives
Naturally, the type of personality of an individual who decides to dedicate their professional life to the treatment and ongoing medical care of others is one of compassion, empathy, and authenticity.
The feeling and absolute reality of 'making a difference' is shared by nurses across the different medical nursing specialisms. This is why it may well be the number one reason to pursue a career as a registered nurse.
Becoming a Nurse Means Guaranteed Job Security
Notably, after the devastation and heightened stress levels, to say the least, caused by the far-reaching impact of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic of 2020, registered professional nurses were and still are in higher demand than ever.
For this reason, obtaining your qualification from the plethora of online ADN to NP programs will ensure that as your career progresses and your expertise and knowledge grows and expands, you will be virtually guaranteed job security for life.
However, it is important to note that before enrolling in specialized nursing programs, obtaining a registered nurse (RN) license is a prerequisite, as these programs typically require it. To become a registered nurse, several exams must be completed before the NCLEX. One such exam is the HESI test, which is a benchmark to ensure that aspiring nurses possess the necessary knowledge to pass the NCLEX successfully. In fact, many nursing schools make it mandatory for graduation.
Preparing for the HESI test can be done independently, and numerous free online resources are available, including reading materials and a comprehensive free HESI study guide that summarizes the key concepts tested in the HESI A2 exam. By successfully passing the HESI exam, you also significantly increase your likelihood of passing the NCLEX.
Nursing Provides a Wealth of Knowledge & Information
The nursing profession is by far one of the few careers that requires an almost constant updating of knowledge and expertise. Naturally, this is because the world of medicine is a field in which research and studies are being carried out on a daily basis, and new developments and discoveries on treatments and diagnoses are consistently born.
As a professional registered nurse, you will not only be entering a prestigious career that genuinely and most effectively improves the quality of life of the individual and communities alike, you will also considerably grow and expand your knowledge base, both on a professional and personal level.
The Sheer Variety & Diversity of the Role of Nursing
Unlike more conventional and usual job roles that are on the traditional nine to five basis, working as a professional nurse automatically provides you with a varied and regularly surprising working day, where no two nursing shifts are ever the same.
Nurses interact and even form bonded relationships and connections with their colleagues and members of other departments within their particular hospital and, more widely, experts from a wide range of other nursing specialisms, allow you a more diverse an interesting professional life.
Nurses Form Lifelong Personal Connections at Work
Obviously, part of the working ethical code for nurses in this country and internationally is that there must always be a professional and respectful distance between a patient and a nurse.
Conversely, however, one of the fundamental ways that nurses, certainly those working in highly traumatic specialisms such as oncology and critical care units, nurses are able to apply a professional distance and detachment to the situation in order to treat the patient to the best of their ability is the forming of strong bonds of trust with each other.
Should you commit to the successful pursuit of a career in nursing, you will find that bonds and connections you cultivate between your fellow nursing staff members will be formed significantly faster than if you met a new friend in your personal life.
Interestingly, but perhaps not entirely surprising, there tends to be a similar set of personality attributes that working nurses share, which include but are categorically not limited to:
- A sense of humor
- Physical fitness
- Emotional stability
- An ability to improvise
- Excellent communication and people skills
- A high attention to detail
- High levels of compassion and empathy
- Resourcefulness
- Automatic reliance of intuition
- A strong working ethic
Nursing Affords an Enhanced Objectivity in Life & a Greater Sense of Perspective
Not only will your natural levels of empathy and compassion be even more prominent and increase exponentially after working as a nurse in a professional setting for only a few months, you will also be afforded a greater sense of perspective on life and experience enhanced levels of objectivity.
If you decide to pursue a rewarding career in the field of medical nursing, you are guaranteed to be challenged and subsequently rewarded in equal measure. Nursing is far more of a vocation than a career.
An oft-repeated phrase that both nursing students and registered professionals use to best summarize their profession succinctly: 'Nursing is most certainly not for everyone.' However, if you are emotionally stable enough and physically able enough to work incredibly long hours and deal with stressful and challenging situations daily, nursing will change not only your life but enhance it beyond the power of virtually any other career.
No Two Days Are The Same As A Nurse
Regardless of the area and location that you will eventually work in as a professional and registered nurse, it is undeniable that, as most working nurse practitioners will attest to, no one day at work is ever the same as the one before or the one after.
Absolutely no one day can be described as 'typical' in the world of healthcare, considering the plethora of different situations and occurrences, whether an emergency or not, that just one shift on a ward or in practice provides.
However, the duties, roles and responsibilities of a working nurse are, perhaps, the only thing that remains, if not the same, then similar from shift to shift.
Shift Roles & Responsibilities of a Hospital Nurse The Beginning of the Shift
Professional and registered nurses who are working in a hospital environment will start their day shift at around six or seven o'clock in the morning. It would be pertinent to point out then, at this particular conjecture, that if you are someone who takes a long time and several cups of coffee to wake up and be ready for the day, then nursing may well not be the best choice of profession for you.
Unlike other, more conventional careers that are based in an office or factory, shifts do not begin by simply clocking on and getting straight to work. Day nurses and night nurses are part of the same closely-knit team and as a result, a detailed and necessary shift brief and de-brief occurs for every nurse, on every ward, every single time. Naturally and quite obviously, the physical health,mental health and wellbeing of the patients is of utmost priority at all times, and therefore, a detailed breakdown of any developments or improvements is given by the night nurse to the day nurse within the de-brief, as well as the informing of the day nurse of any special medication or treatment methods needed for individual patients during their shift.
During the first hour or so, the day nurse has a chance to update themselves of the patients on their particular ward's charts and information and to arrange any appointments with medical doctors or physicians that a particular patient may need that day. In addition, the day nurse will then carry out an inventory of the medical supplies on the ward to ensure every patient in their care that day has everything they need.
Morning Rounds
After a thorough and constructive briefing to start the shift, a nurse working on a hospital ward carries out their morning rounds.
Morning rounds consist of the nurse visiting every patient on the ward who is under their direct care individually, assessing their general, overall health, and then the status of their ailment, disease, or wound. Blood work is often a regular job during these rounds, and any patients on the ward who are suffering from diabetes have their glucose levels tested as part of their routine.
If any of the patients in their care are due to undergo extensive treatment or surgery that day, the nurse prepares that particular patient for their procedure. Additionally, hospital nurses working on a ward will then assist their patients with their normal, routine tasks such as washing, eating, cleaning, dressing, and walking.
Often, there will be specific patients on the ward who are due to be released from the hospital that day. In this case, the hospital nurse will process any last tests and checks needed ( such as more bloodwork), getting the doctor to sign-off the patient and perhaps even more importantly, educating the patient themselves and their family members on the appropriate follow-up aftercare needs.
Lunchtime
It is perhaps not entirely surprising to learn that, for nurses working in a hospital as in any other medical environment, lunchtime is more of a rare luxury than a kind of regular event.
Naturally, the patients under your direct care need constant supervision as well as treatments during this time. Therefore it is common for nurses to not eat a decent meal throughout the entirety of their day shift. Nurses on a night shift tend to have slightly more time to grab a quick sandwich and cup of coffee as some, but definitely not all patients, may at some point be sleeping.
Obviously, however, as a working nurse, it is vital to look after and maintain both your own physical and mental health and well-being to best care for the patients you are responsible for.
Self-Care for Working Nurses
Due to the exceedingly emotionally and physically exhausting nature of the role, working nurses are prone to experiencing migraines and burnouts and, in more serious situations but certainly not particularly rare, nervous breakdowns and panic attacks.
To avoid physical and emotional health problems, there are a plethora of effective and, importantly for a working nurse, efficient ways to ensure your own personal self-care needs are taken care of.
1. Emotional Self-Care
Ways to take care of your emotional self-care needs as a working nurse include maintaining, where possible, a sense of humor and forming banter-filled relationships with your colleagues, praising yourself privately when you know you have done an excellent job with everything that you can do, and praising others for their own nursing accomplishments.
In your private life, be sure that you are giving yourself enough rest and sleep, and ensure to take time out for yourself, even if this means a hot bubble bath with candles. Other ways to relax also include creating a musical playlist on a streaming mobile phone application that relaxes you, indulging in the incredibly emotionally beneficial practice of meditation, and being creative in your extra-curricular pursuits.
Although you will be spending large amounts of time on your feet as a working nurse, you still may not be undertaking as much physical activity as is recommended. As a result, when you are on shift at the hospital or other medical facility, be sure to park as far away from the building as you can, take a longer route around the building when possible and feasible, bring homemade healthy snacks and lunches with you, and always strive to take the stairs and not the elevator. Doing these simple changes will help you burn a few more calories and stay as healthy as you can.
Other ways to take care of your physical welfare, health and wellbeing include taking a nap on your down time for twenty minutes ( no more, no less), ordering fresh and healthy foods to be delivered to your home on your days off, going to bed earlier and waking up earlier, scheduling a deep-tissue or more relaxing massage and prioritizing healthier food choices by creating a weekly meal plan.
Other ways to ensure, as a working nurse, you are practicing self-care whenever and wherever possible include exploring yoga or Pilates in free time, appreciating and experiencing nature when possible over a static and stuffy staff room, keeping a gratitude journal, never neglecting your social life, and decluttering your home.
Nursing is an incredibly exciting, adventurous, rewarding career that is rich in challenges, emotional tolls, and difficulties in equal measure.
