Nursing may not come to mind when you think of professions that have endured forever, but it’s definitely one of the world’s oldest careers.
Uniforms may have changed, regulations have tightened, and licensing requirements have become stricter. Even so, nursing’s core throughout modern history has remained the same: caring for the sick.
Even if a miracle vaccine prevented every imaginable illness or injury, demand for nurses would remain. After all, someone still needs to dispense the vaccine, right?
When you think of a nurse today, you’re probably picturing someone in hospital scrubs, and that person could be a man or a woman. 50 years ago, that wasn’t the case.
In the 1960s, nursing was predominantly a female profession, and women wore long dresses, stockings, and the ever-present nurse’s cap. A decade later, dresses became shorter, and caps began to disappear. Finding a nurse wearing a cap in the 1990s would have been a tall order, and you’d also notice that disposable aprons had replaced cloth ones.
Since the mid-1990s, the quintessential nurse’s uniform has been the scrubs that you see today. These scrubs are sometimes color-coordinated to distinguish staff by department. If you look hard, you can even find free shipping on scrub uniforms, and being a nurse can also lead to financial success.
A few decades ago, people thought of nurses as nothing more than a doctor’s assistant. Now, nurses are working in tandem with physicians to determine and administer the best possible treatment for every patient.
Many people who are not afraid of taking risks when it comes to their career opted to enter the world of nursing and achieved their degrees and licenses in thos days, as is still the case today.
Nurses now publish scientific research, something nearly unheard of even a decade or two ago. You will also find nurses collaborating with doctors to shape the best health care policies and developing mobile applications to monitor patients.
American Nurse Today has a great blog post explaining why nursing is more than a job; it’s a profession. The author has been a nurse for 35 years and has seen the nursing profession transform from within.
The argument that nursing is just a job doesn’t hold up, as the author shows how nursing has surpassed other healthcare fields through the advanced education, licensure, and experience many nurses have earned. A nursing career is not as cut and dried as it used to be.
You can pursue many different avenues for a nursing degree. An LPN (licensed practical nurse) or LVN (licensed vocational nurse) program requires only one year of education after high school. An RN (registered nurse) has completed a bachelor’s or associate’s degree at an accredited school and passed the exam to obtain a nursing license.
An APRN (advanced practice registered nurse) has obtained certification as a registered nurse and then continued education at the master’s level. Jacksonville University has more specific information about the types of nursing degrees available. One thing is sure: with a fulfilling career as a nurse, you’ll be in a position to plan for a comfortable retirement, and your employer will pay their share, too!
If you feel that a career in nursing is the right path for you, first decide what level of certification you want to attain. You can enroll in a physical school or attend one of the many online nursing courses available. However, an online course requires strong self-discipline!
Do you want to start at the LPN or LVN level to help patients and advocate for their best interests as soon as possible? Or do you want to spend more time getting specialized education and become an RN after you pass the exam?
Perhaps you would even like to stay in school long enough to earn a master’s degree or higher and become a specialized APRN? Even if you start as an LPN, you can still return to school for higher-level training, and you will also have nursing experience.