When people think of nursing careers, the first thing that comes to their mind is probably a hospital setting. However, there is a wide range of opportunities beyond just working in hospitals. Understanding what options are available may encourage more people to enter the field.

Nursing Careers: Nurse Anesthetist

When patients need to receive anesthetic, they also need the services of a nurse anesthetist. These nurses help to ensure that everything is going well with the anesthetic and is on hand to assist in case an emergency does occur. While they are most commonly found in hospital surgical rooms, they can also work with dentists or plastic surgeons.

This is one of the top paying nursing careers with an average yearly salary of $99,000 or more. To enter the field, a nurse must complete 24 months of training in working with anesthesia.

Nursing Careers: Nurse Practitioners

Some people avoid nursing careers because they think of all them require working long hours and dealing with serious medical emergencies. Nurse practitioners face neither of those problems in most work environments. Instead, they often work in clinical settings, such as those run by HMO's, and specialize in working with particular population segments, such as children, women, or the elderly.

Nurse practitioners do have to complete graduate-level nurse practitioner training, which generally takes about two years. On average, they can earn 42,000 and more per year depending on their specialty and their location.

Nursing Careers: Nursing Faculty

Because many nurses today are preparing for retirement, many nursing schools are having trouble finding enough nursing faculty to meet student demand. That means that schools are going to be desperately trying to attract new nursing faculty. As educators, nurses would train the next generation of nurses and, in some cases, would have opportunities to do research on medical topics.

The requirements for nursing faculty vary from institution to institution, but the more experience and education a nurse has the better are the chances he or she would be considered for such a position. Annual salaries also vary but as demand rises so will the pay for these positions.

If you are interested in learning more about nursing careers, visit Travel Nursing or Nursing Agency.

Resources

• U. S. Department of Labor - Registered nurses job outlook
• College Foundation of North Carolina - Types of Nurses
• North Carolina Health Careers - Results of nursing career search
• Nursing Continuing Education - Nursing continuing education is part of a lifelong learning process which gives nurses the opportunity to stay up to date with the latest in the market and also step higher in their career.
• Nursing PDA Software - Information about nursing PDA software
• Nurse Anesthesiologist Jobs - Information about nurse anethesiologist jobs
• Nursing Jobs - Nursing jobs are in high demand with shortage of trained nursing professionals. Nursing jobs have been growing at scorching pace.