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Looking for information on a career in nursing? No better place to start than right here!

Less than a decade ago, people who were enrolling in nursing school were being told that they were crazy. They were told that the job was brutal, and that there simply were no jobs out there for nurses straight out of the Registered Nurse training programs.

Well, flash forward to the end of the first decade of the new century. Prognosticators who study the healthcare industry have been predicting for a while that the situation with regards to the availability of jobs for nurses was going to change- and boy, has it! Health care providers such as hospitals and nursing homes are waking up to the realization that as people leave nursing positions, it’s becoming very hard to fill those positions with new, qualified nurses. This has led to extreme competition for qualified nurses, and not only on a local (national) but worldwide scale.

The benefit of the shortage, to nurses, will be an improved future work environment, as employers try to better conditions in order to attract quality candidates. However, in the short-term, it’s putting a lot of strain on everyone and may actually exacerbate the frustrations nurses may have, which may cause them to not only leave their jobs but also discourage others from becoming nurses.

In order to ensure that the current crisis in nursing does not continue much further into the future, the two areas of retention and recruitment need to be addressed. This article will take a look at some of the topics that come up among nurses when it comes to addressing these issues.

Making sure that nurses are happy within their current career in nursing so that they stay in the profession is vital to stabilize the crisis. With anywhere from 25-40% of nurses are expected to retire over the next ten years, ensuring that younger members of the work force stay at their jobs is more important than ever.

The general public is coming to the realization that nurses play just as important a role in the healthcare system as doctors and other medical professionals do, and the industry is starting to realize it, as well. Many nurses complain that they are not accorded the level of respect they deserve, as nursing is seen as less of a “profession” and more of a “job”. Physicians are often guilty of this, making nurses feel as if they are simply there to mechanically carry out the doctor’s orders, and nothing more. As the system loses more and more nurses, it will become more and more important to grant those remaining the appropriate level of respect.

A benefit of the current nursing shortage (if you can consider it a benefit) is that non-nurses are finally starting to realize how rigorous the training and testing processes for becoming an RN are. It takes just as long to become a nurse as it does to earn a B. A., B.S., or any other undergraduate degree!

Another oft-cited concern of professional nurses is that the conditions in their places of work are very poor. In this case, work conditions do not apply to the many different situations a nurse will have to put up with from patients during a course of a day; rather, they concern areas of the job that are directly informed by management policy, such as hours of work, nurse to patient ratio, the use of support staff, and the condition of equipment.

A standard nurse’s schedule includes a combination of both day and night shifts. Clearly, it’s impossible to run a medical facility without nurses, so it isn’t as if the night shift can just be eliminated. However, some suggestions for parity include paying extra for nurses that work the night shift, or adding a third “swing shift” to the rotation so that the night shift is not as long as the day shift is.

Continued increases in the budget of the United States government in the area of health care are tagged to help resolve, among other things, the concerns of nurses both with support staff and with equipment. The job of a nurse involves quite a lot of lifting, so it is incredibly important if any nurses are going to make it through to retirement while still holding on to jobs in nursing that the equipment available in the hospital eases their burden in this area. Many nurses find that they are also doing duties that are traditionally thought of as the responsibilities of receptionists and orderlies, and in order for nurses to attend to their nursing duties, sooner or later facilities will have to streamline funds so that these support levels are taken care of by staff other than nurses.

In the short term, the nurse to patient ratio will continue to be the biggest problem concerning both nurses and patients. The nursing shortage means that most facilities cannot fill vacant positions needed in order to bring the ratio down to a level that nurses are comfortable with. However, by properly addressing the issue, there is hope that this situation can be resolved.

Recruitment of nurses is the second vital area in the future of nursing. This area will see a marked attempt to train more nurses as well as efforts by all facilities to offer enticing deals to attract nurses to positions within them. Those that do not or cannot offer sufficiently attractive enticements will find that they do not have the nursing staff necessary to run their facilities.

One of the biggest concerns is that the output of nurses from universities and colleges does not match the number of nurses that are leaving. In addition, many graduating nurses are not going to work in traditional areas such as hospitals, instead choosing the lower levels of stress and the higher levels of pay available at other facilities, such as jails and nursing homes.

In order to improve the patient to nurse ratio that is such a common complaint among nurses, it is vital to increase the number of students coming out of nursing schools across the country. Universities and colleges need to have the funding available to create these spaces. In addition, facilities and governments will have to offer programs such as student loan forgiveness programs in order to attract potential students to the profession.

The last decade has seen a massive growth in secondary industries targeted towards nurses. These industries include nursing agencies and travel nursing programs which hire their own nurses and then contract them out to facilities in need. These nurses are generally higher paid than their counterparts in the facilities they are contracted out to. In addition, they get to change their place of work frequently, often with all travel expenses paid. Facilities are going to need to take a look at this practice and determine if they are willing to offer the kind of wages and benefits that these nurses are receiving if they ever hope to have a stable work force.

As far as the nursing profession goes, the long term future is bright. The current shortage allows a graduating nurse to virtually write his or her own ticket. In addition, the shortage is expected to grow worse, which has pushed the concerns of nurses into the public spotlight. In order to alleviate the shortage, governments and facilities will have no choice but to meet the concerns of nurses in order to keep them at their jobs.

Alternatively, the future of the nursing profession may lie within nursing agencies. Unless facilities and governments realize that the concerns of nurses need to be met at the ground level, new and established nurses alike will continue to gravitate towards the pay and flexibility that these agencies offer.

I hope you’ve found this discussion useful, and it’s obvious that a career in nursing is something that needs to be thought about pretty seriously. Good luck!

Nursing is a profession focused on assisting individuals, families and communities in attaining, re-attaining and maintaining optimal health and functioning. Modern definitions of nursing define it as a science and an art that focuses on promoting quality of life as defined by persons and families, throughout their life experiences from birth to care at the end of life.

In pre-modern times, nuns and the military often provided nursing services. The religious and military roots of modern nursing remain in evidence today. For example, in Britain, senior female nurses are known as “Sisters”. In recent times in the US and Canada many nurses are flowing back into working in a “religious” field through “Parish Nursing”. These nurses work within a church community to perform health education, counseling, provide referrals to community support agencies, and connect volunteers from the church community with those in need of assistance. Read more… »

In the current harsh economic environment there are few industries that are surviving, and even fewer that are thriving.  One industry that is not merely surviving, but thriving and actually growing is the Healthcare Industry.  With an aging population that is making fewer healthy food choices and dealing with more stress, healthcare needs are on the rise requiring the expertise and caring of those who have chosen a career in the medical arts.  This increased need for healthcare workers is no more apparent than in the field of nursing.  Over the coming years, all indicators predict that the need for qualified nurses will outpace the ability to train individuals who choose this field of study.

With this increased demand for trained individuals, there will be an increased demand for companies that provide the services of nurses.  For any investor, this demand represents a great opportunity, for with enough capital, a wise investor can start their own nursing agency.  But more importantly, an even wiser investor could put their money into a nursing agency that already exists and has a reputation for quality service.  This latter path to owning a nursing agency however, requires far less work and provides a much more stable base upon which to build a company.

As with all franchises, a nursing franchise is built from an existing BRAND that has proven its sustainability and created the template for a successful operation.  The nursing franchise that we looked at for this article is called The Professional Nursing Agency.  This company has been providing expert nursing staff in the Canberra Region since 1984 and was recently bought out by RJ Hardie Industries Pty Ltd. with the intention of sharing their brand of healthcare wherever the need arises.

The Professional Nursing Agency requires that every one of its staff maintain their skills in several key fields such as Basic Life Support, Senior First Aid and others.  It is this commitment to quality healthcare that gives PNA its appeal to prospective investors.  And it is this commitment that insures the success of any franchise that carries The Professional Nursing Agency name.

For those who are interested in investing in the healthcare industry, there is no better way to do so in a manner that allows one to see the benefits of their efforts first-hand like a Professional Read more… »

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A career as a mental health nurse or RMN is extremely varied and rewarding. Mental health nursing jobs can be based in the community, in a secure setting, in a ward or in a care home. RMN Nurses have specific training in all kinds of mental health conditions from depression to dementia. Mental health nurses who work in the community or with the elderly usually have specific additional training relating to dementia. Nursing patients who have dementia requires a different set of specialist skills to those an RMN working in a substance abuse unit for instance.

The key skills of an RMN Nurse are different to those of an RGN adult nurse, not that either skill set is less important than the other. An RMN Nurse uses skills of communication, listening and interpreting to understand a patient’s condition and to hear what they aren’t saying as well as what they are. The continuity of treatment by one mental health practitioner can make an enormous to the wellbeing of a patient and can speed their recovery.

Training to be an RMN Nurse is very similar to any nursing course. There is approximately 50% academic work and 50% practical placement experience, most of which is focussed around mental health nursing environments. Once the course is complete, a student nurse becomes a qualified nurse when the NMC issues their PIN number, which is their professional registration and must be renewed every year in order to maintain their employment.

Mental health nurse jobs can be found at Nurses.co.uk or Socialcare.co.uk

Theatre nursing jobs are available in both the public and private sector, and will often involve similar working routines and responsibilities. Pay scales will vary between sectors, but in general the private sector will base their pay on the agenda for change NHS pay bands.

A Theatre Nurse is a qualified nurse, usually from adult branch so they are a qualified RGN with specific expertise in a theatre nursing environment. They are NMC registered (in the UK) and must maintain this registration in order to continue practising as a theatre nurse.

There are several different roles within theatre nursing and we’re going to look at just a few.

Scrub Nurse

A Scrub Nurse will be present in theatre during the procedure and will pass the surgeon any equipment they require as they ask for it. An experienced theatre nurse will be able to pre-empt a request for an instrument and will have it ready to pass to the surgeon. It is essential that a scrub nurse has the highest understanding of infection control and equipment management. They will be responsible for sterilising all equipment prior to surgery, for counting all instruments and swabs after the procedure and for ensuring the theatre is cleaned afterwards.

Anaesthetic Nurse

An Anaesthetic Nurse will work with an Anaesthetist prior to and during the surgery to assess the patient’s needs and ensure the correct level of anaesthesia is delivered. They are responsible for ensuring a patient’s vital signs remain steady and if it’s a local anaesthetic, that communication is maintained with the patient throughout to ensure they are comfortable.

Recovery Nurse

A Recovery Nurse will take over responsibility for monitoring the patient’s vital signs as soon as they are released from theatre. A patient is most vulnerable immediately after surgery so observations will be carried out every 15 minutes at least. A recovery nurse must be able to react quickly if a patient shows negative signs and their condition deteriorates. They must be able to intubate a patient if they are suffering respiratory difficulty or call for assistance if a resuss team is required.

Above a Theatre Nurse is a highly qualified healthcare professional, and anyone hoping to get a theatre nursing job must expect the competition to be very tough and be prepared to apply to several different places before being offered a position.