3 Interesting Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Being A Nurse
Are you ready to start your journey toward becoming a nurse? Have you done all the research, scoured the internet for information, and selected your nursing program?
Think you’ve figured out everything there is to being a successful nursing student and gaining a career as a nurse? You might be surprised by some of these truths about the nursing profession.
There’s a wide range of nursing careers, degrees, salaries, and job descriptions. Nursing degrees can take anywhere from two to eight years to complete, depending on what type of degree program you choose, what type of nurse you want to be, and if you plan to pursue specializations to take up a specific kind of nursing. You can earn an associate’s degree and work as a nursing assistant, or all the way up to a master’s degree and work as a nurse practitioner—and there are several points on the sliding scale between the two. Nurses can work in hospitals, doctors’ offices, schools, community centers, and more, depending on these credentials. Also depending on nursing license type, nurses can earn anywhere from $25,000 to nearly $105,000 per year.
People trust nurses more than almost any other profession. Nursing is consistently ranked as one of the most trustworthy professions. People feel inclined to trust their nurses in part because a significant portion of the job is providing patients with education, support, resources for understanding diagnosis and treatments, and family member support. Many nurses are able to develop personal relationships with their patients, helping the latter to feel more comfortable and safe with their nursing team.
Though they work in healthcare, nurses are not immune. The most common nursing injury is back pain, and a shocking number of nurses are obese. Long shift hours, possibly high levels of work stress, hours on their feet, and constant responses to emergency situations are among the contributors to these conditions. On your nursing journey, remember to participate in self-care and put your health and wellness first!
