How-To-Guide for Becoming a Nurse
Dedicating your professional life to nursing means becoming a person who helps people, saves lives, comforts the sick and their families, and is heavily relied upon by the medical community.
Nurses are important and irreplaceable figures within their working environments, and making the decision to join the nursing corps means a great deal to the many lives you’ll touch along your journey.
Successful nurses are compassionate and hardworking, passionate about their work, and excellent team players. Nurses can work in hospitals, physicians’ offices, skilled nursing facilities, schools and community centers, assisted living centers, and more. They work on teams with other nurses, nurse’s aides, doctors, counselors, surgeons, and others. The primary duties of nurses in most of these capacities is delivering medical care to patients, providing support and information to patients and their families and maintaining order and operational standards within their workplace.
If you’re ready to begin your journey to become a nurse, here’s what you need to do next:
1. Decide on and research the nursing path that is right for you. There are different types of nursing fields within that you can specialize in. You may want to become a nursing assistant or a licensed practical nurse (LNP) or anything in between, and these levels require different schooling. Perhaps you want to work specifically in pediatrics or oncology. You can specialize in many different areas of nursing.
2. Apply and be accepted to a diploma or degree program. At HCI, you can obtain an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in nursing, depending on your ultimate goal.
3. Obtain a clinical rotation and complete practical training. Your clinical study can act as an on-the-job interview in a lot of ways. This portion of your training takes place with other professionals in the field, and your performance can pave the way for your employment after graduation and licensing.
4. Pass the state licensing exam. Depending on what type of nurse you are studying to become, you will take a correlating board exam. Learn more about the nursing exam and requirements for licensure here.
