Career: Advanced-Practice Nurses
You wake up one morning with awful flu symptoms and call your doctor. Unfortunately, she’s out of town, but the nurse practitioner (NP) is available instead. The NP examines you, cultures your throat, writes a prescription, and sends you on your way to recovery.
Today’s advanced-practice nurses (including NPs) perform tasks once reserved for medical doctors. They assist other medical professionals and manage patient care. And some specialize in fields such as pediatrics (working with children and teens) and oncology (working with cancer patients).
Advanced-practice nurses diagnose and treat illnesses and provide health care. Most are also certified to prescribe medication.
“I can't call the doctors at the hospital for every decision I need to make. I was hired to make these decisions by myself.”
Joan, Nurse Practitioner
Are You Ready To...?
- Take an extra two or three years of postgraduate study to specialize
- Pass a specialty test in addition to the National Council Licensure Exam
- Examine and counsel patients
- Diagnose health problems
- Write prescriptions
- Observe rigid guidelines to protect yourself and others against disease and work-related dangers
- Possibly start your own practice
It Helps to Be...
Caring, sympathetic, detail-oriented, and able to make quick, logical decisions. You must be able to cope with emergencies, stress, and suffering -- and remain levelheaded all the while. You'll encourage patients to get well and, sometimes, help them to let go.
Make High School Count
- Take plenty of challenging math and science courses all through high school.
- Enhance your communication skills through English composition, drama, and speech classes.
- Study a foreign language so you’ll be able to reach out and communicate with different communities and patients.
- Volunteer at a health clinic, a hospital, a women’s clinic, or an eldercare facility.
Did You Know?
- Certified registered nurse anesthetists are advanced-practice nurses who give anesthesia to patients, ensuring that they feel no pain or discomfort during surgery.
Outlook
Government economists expect job growth for registered nurses, including advanced-practice nurses, to be much faster than the average for all careers through 2014. A continued nursing shortage combined with the number of nurses nearing retirement should result in many job openings.
Thanks to new technology, nurses will be providing patients with improved medical treatments and preventive care. More jobs will be available outside of hospitals as medical procedures and treatments are increasingly done in doctors' offices to cut costs.
Compensation
In its 2005 salary survey, the journal ADVANCE for Nurse Practitioners found that the average annual salary of full-time nurse practitioners was $74,812. Nurse practitioners with their own practices earn the most at $90,574.
Average annual salaries by specialty are listed below:
- Emergency: $84,835
- Neonatal: $81,511
- Gerontology: $77,020
- Surgery: $84,084
- Mental health: $75,711
- Pediatric: $69,234
- Family practice: $72,048
- Women's health: $69,672
