Traditional roles in nursing
Nursing is considered a highly rewarding and noble profession in the healthcare sector all over the globe. Nurses play a vital role in providing essential care and treatment to patients at hospitals, nursing homes, healthcare centres and community centres worldwide. Under the supervision and instruction of doctors, nurses take care of every single healthcare service including regular health check-ups, keeping records of crucial health parameters and medications of patients. It requires healthcare knowledge, skills, science and compassion to provide holistic healthcare services to patients and communities.
The healthcare infrastructure and facilities across the globe have significantly improved worldwide in the last decade. As a result, the demand for highly qualified and skilled nurses has exponentially risen and thus the scope of nursing has expanded convincingly. This blog is going to shed light on the vast horizon related to available career scopes for nursing students. Students who will follow their passion by taking admission into nursing courses can go through this study as it showcases existing diverse paths that they can pursue in the future to secure their career in this noble profession.
Registered nurse (RN)
Registered nurses refer to all those nursing students who have successfully completed essential courses and training for jobs. RNs are capable of providing direct care in healthcare settings such as hospitals, nursing homes and community care centres by obtaining necessary skills and knowledge. These registered nurses look after patient care, coordinate with healthcare expertise and administer medications in various healthcare settings. Thus, being a registered nurse is the primary goal for all fresher nursing students to work as the backbone of healthcare and gather professional experience.
Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN)
It is important to gather practical experience in real-time healthcare settings. Therefore, nursing students should go for obtaining the position of LPNs as interns to learn practical healthcare jobs directly under the supervision of doctors and registered nurses. This internship period helps nursing students learn essential skills regarding medications, medical report observations and basic patient services. Hence, passed-out and fresher nursing students should go for internships as LPNs to strengthen the foundation of essential practical skills.
Nurse practitioners (NP)
Nursing students can also pursue advanced clinical training and education to become nursing practitioners. It requires a minimum graduation degree in nursing education to become qualified as an NP. Generally, NPs work in a higher designation compared to registered nurses as they pursue specialised skills. Hence, students can go for the career option as nurse practitioners after gathering experience as a registered nurse to obtain professional promotion. NPs are used to share specific duties with doctors such as conducting physical tests, and diagnoses, providing specialised treatment and prescribing relevant medications to patients.
Nurse educators
After gathering adequate experience as registered nurses or nurse practitioners many of them change their professional field. It is not easy to suddenly change the professional field from the healthcare sector to the education sector. Having in-depth practical knowledge of nursing and teaching nursing students effectively are not the same. Thus, many nurse educators face challenges in the initial stage in the academic field. Experienced nurses pursue specific courses to qualify for CNE (“Certification for Nurse Educators”) to become educators. However, extreme levels of compassion and dedication are required to be a good nurse educator to teach students effectively even after having enough nursing experience.
Specialised roles in Nursing
Career opportunities for nursing students have extended on a large scale due to the advancement of healthcare science, technology and skills. As a result, some specialised nursing roles currently have a high demand across Australia. This blog is going to mention specific specialised roles that can be followed by nursing students in the future to establish their careers.
Paediatric nurse
Specialised nursing has become common these days where nurses are trained with specific skills and knowledge to treat and care for a particular group of patients. There are significant in the paediatric nursing field to take special care of infants and children with unique healthcare issues. Empathy, relationship building, communication, and special technological skills to operate medical equipment to measure blood pressure and heart rate on a regular note along with basic nursing skills are required in Paediatric nursing.
Critical care nurse
The demand for critical care nurses all over Australia is remarkably high. Thus, nursing students can pursue specialised training in critical care discipline to grab the golden career opportunities. Critical care nurses work in ICUs (“Intensive care units”) and handle critical patients who are fighting with life-threatening health issues. Thus, nurses in this section require expertise and high-level skills to improve and stabilise the health conditions of patients. Thus, a nursing student who has enough moral courage, professional determination and expertise skill should go for this particular career option.
Oncology nurse
In the last decade, oncology has developed significantly and thus treatment of cancer patients become possible in developed countries. Chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy and Hyperthermia have become effective measures of treatment procedures to address and treat cancers. Specific technical skill is required among nurses to provide direct care to cancer patients worldwide at hospitals and cancer treatment centres. Thus, students can go for essential courses and training to explore the significant job opportunities as oncology nurses.
Gynaecological and obstetric nurse
This is a specialised section of nursing where skilled nurses serve against specialised women’s health issues, and complications during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum. Therefore, a high number of nursing job vacancies for specialised gynaecological and obstetric nurses is observed in labour units, maternity wards and health clinics for women.
Advanced role in nursing
Advanced nursing roles increase the scope of nursing exponentially all around the globe. It significantly raises nursing job vacancies in worldwide healthcare settings. Thus, nursing students now have a wide-spread career opportunity by going outside of traditional nursing roles.
Nurse anaesthetist
Students can pursue specialised courses in anaesthesia to obtain the required skills and knowledge to successfully perform surgical procedures to ensure the comfort and safety of critical patients. This particular section comprises a high level of nursing job vacancies in Australia.
Nurse administrator
Nursing administration has become one of the aspiring fields that create significant nursing job vacancies in Australia. Nurse administrators specialise in management aspects to manage staff, healthcare operations and facilities efficiently.
CNS (Clinical nurse specialist)
This particular section consists of a significant nursing job vacancy in Australia. Students need to acquire specialised clinical skills associated with psychiatric care and cardiology to efficiently diagnose symptoms and provide healthcare services accordingly.
All potential career scopes have been discussed in brief in this blog to help nursing students select the best domain in nursing according to their interests, skillsets and compassion. Currently, the scope of nursing has extensively increased in Australia as the nursing job vacancy rises in specialised and advanced nursing roles. Along with this, non-clinical nursing roles added an extra scope to nursing in Australia. It includes the options of nurse researcher, nursing informatics specialist and legal nursing consultant. In addition, nursing students can also avail travel nursing and homecare business as career options in the future. Thus, students can confidently pursue nursing courses as nursing professions comprise high career scopes, suitable pay scales, social recognition and the opportunities to pursue one of the noblest jobs.
