I’m finally ready to start sharing my thoughts and experiences in nursing! I love my profession, but it has often been a tough road. I’ve worked as an Emergency Room Nurse, Labor and Delivery Nurse, Charge Nurse, Staff Nurse, a nurse who did the floors and the ICU, an educator, a manager and now I’m in consulting.

I can’t believe that I have such a wide range of roles to share with you all! In fact, I’m thinking about writing about another blog — one that helps nurses figure out what their true passion is.

So many people go into nursing for various reasons: money is good (it really isn’t), great benefits (it can be), flexible hours (sometimes) and variety of positions (definitely).

Nursing is a very diverse field. There is something for everybody. It’s just a matter of finding our your niche.

If you are considering a career as a nurse, there are many different types of nursing jobs to consider. To help identify what type of nurse you want to be, we have put together a brief summary of the types of nurses and what they do.

We started out by looking at the most commonly known jobs for nurses.* Emergency Room Nurse*: Typically reports to the emergency department head nurse and assists with patient care in all areas of the emergency department.

* Labor and Delivery Nurse*: The labor and delivery nurse provides assistance to women during their labor and immediately following childbirth.

* Operating Room Nurse*: The operating room nurse provides care for patients before, during and after surgical procedures.

* Pediatric Nurse*: The pediatric nurse works with children from birth to age 18 or 21 depending on the facility. They work in hospitals, clinics, schools, even in patients’ homes.

Before you start nursing school, you have to choose what type of nurse you want to be. You can choose from many different types of nurses and many different specialties within each type. The most common types of nurses that people think about are emergency room (ER) nurses, labor and delivery (L&D) nurses, intensive care unit (ICU) nurses, surgical nurses and medical-surgical nurses. There are many more types of nurses than I just mentioned, but these are the ones that people tend to think about when they think about nursing as a career.

Nursing school is only the beginning. You will learn a great deal in your nursing education program, but you won’t learn everything there is to know. After nursing school graduation, you will go on to work as a new graduate nurse or a novice nurse in one of the many nursing jobs available. You will be supervised by a seasoned nurse who has already worked years in their specialty field.

You should choose your specialty based upon what interests you the most because there is so much that goes into becoming a good nurse and even more that goes into becoming an outstanding nurse; it’s best to specialize in something that fascinates you and keeps your interest year after year in order to maintain passion for your

You can be a nurse in many different settings. Some nurses work in hospitals, others work in doctor’s offices or schools. The type of nursing you practice depends on your education and experience, as well as what you enjoy doing.

One way to consider the differences is by thinking about the types of patients nurses see. Nurses who work with adult patients have a completely different job than nurses who work with babies. There are also many different types of nurses that work with adults.

Here are some of the most common types of nurses:

Emergency Room (ER) Nurse

ER nurses see patients that have been admitted to the emergency room for immediate treatment for an illness or injury. They admit and discharge patients, draw blood, treat wounds and perform many other tasks related to patient care. ER nurses must be organized and able to prioritize tasks because they often handle multiple patients at one time, each with a different condition.

You don’t have to wear the nurse’s hat any more. But you’re sure as heck going to have to wear scrubs. And you’re probably going to have to wear a lot of them.

If you’re going into nursing, you think you hate uniforms but it turns out you just hate your uniform. You hate the fact that it’s plaid and ugly and makes you look like a hobo. You hate that the only pants that fit are called “unisex” and are made of synthetic fabric that feels like plastic wrap against your skin.

But then one day, when you’re in nursing school, someone hands you a set of scrubs and they are perfect. They are royal blue cotton with white piping around the collar and sleeves, and they fit perfectly without constricting or making it hard to move around. They make you look thinner, even though they’re not tight; they call attention to your best features while hiding your flaws; they are comfortable and well-made and stylish at the same time.

And then the most amazing thing happens: people start treating you differently when you’re wearing those scrubs. Suddenly people listen to what you have to say; suddenly people think of you as intelligent; suddenly people treat you seriously, as if

Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.

Florence Nightingale

This quote reminds us of the importance and beauty of nursing. Nurses are not only caregivers, they are also patient advocates, educators and researchers. Nursing is a noble profession that allows you to help others and make a difference in their lives.

Nursing has become a very popular career choice lately because of its flexible work schedule and its high wages. However, becoming a nurse is not all fun and games– there are plenty of challenges! Nurses must have strong critical thinking skills, be detail-oriented, have good communication skills and be proficient in time management. If you feel like you have these qualities then nursing might be the right career choice for you!

“Nurse Costume” by Nadia Ing – A photo of a woman wearing a nurse costume. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nurse_Costume.jpg