Ask any healthcare professional and he will tell you that we have less number of registered nurses than our country actually needs. Given the large number of vacancies for nurses, the salaries offered are quite high and extremely competitive. Every hospital tries to provide high salaries to their nurses in order to ensure that the recruited RN’s stay on and do not shift to some other lucrative job. Given the current trends in the healthcare industry, most specialists are of the opinion that this demand for nurses is unlikely to die down any time soon.
In the following section we look at some of the very many profitable possibilities open to all those who are looking to make a career in nursing.
A forensic nurse works closely with victims of various criminal cases. Be it sexual assault, murder or abuse, a forensic nurse will analyze body evidences and help investigators in uncovering the truth. If you are a tele-soap buff you have probably seen a number of such nurses running around in investigative serials such as CSI. Forensic nursing is meant specifically for those who are looking for an offbeat and interesting occupation and is definitely not cut out for those who want a stable nurse job.
Yet another new area that is just beginning to gain popularity is a field called legal nurse consulting. Nurses from this field (also called legal nurse consultants or LNCs) work alongside attorneys handling medical cases. The LNCs guide lawyers regarding medical procedures, according to what exactly goes on in hospitals. This is therefore where a practicing nurses on-the-job knowledge helps him/her. RNs working at hospitals know how things at hospitals work. When they work with attorneys, they share this privileged information with them and help them out. Besides attorneys, a number of insurance companies also employ LNCs. And get this, an experienced LNC can demand anything over and around $150/hr!!! And it isn’t just the money that is great, LNCs are also granted as much freedom as any other freelancer.
Nurses who are unwilling to stay pinned at a single location can also make good money by becoming what is called a ‘travel nurse’. No matter where you are, be it Texas or San Francisco if you want to travel, a nurse’s job can help you visit or live in places you have only heard of before. The nurse staffing companies hire RNs for almost every part of the country. So if you are looking to relocate just let them know and they’ll take care of all the rest. Travel nurses not only get to choose the exact location where they would like to live, they also get to choose lucrative jobs which pay more than others. Travel nurses thus have the best of both the worlds!
Nurses can also work as dental, surgical or pediatric nurses or as a family nurse practitioner, in which case you will have to be dealing with one specific patient and only look after his/her wants. If you are looking to pursue a career in nursing, you will have to take at least a preliminary degree, which will grant you a Licensed Practitioner Nurse. To avail greater lucrative offers however get a Bachelors of Science degree in Nursing.