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Health care is one of the fastest growing professions out there, but every day, prospective students are being turned away because of a lesser-known shortage: there aren’t enough Nurse Educators to teach them all!

As a nurse, you are already ahead of the curve if you’re interested in becoming a Nurse Educator. After all, you already know most of the material. Becoming a nursing instructor is also a great way to change careers into something with more flexible hours, less physical strain, and better pay. Oh, and by the way, if you’re a Nurse Manager, or aspiring to be one, you’ll find these qualities apply to you, too!

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Read on for the 10 qualities that you’ll need if you want to survive and thrive as a Nurse Educator…and a Nurse Manager.

#10: Patience
Patience is one of those obvious traits that is often surprisingly under-cultivated in teachers. Having patience both with students and yourself will create a more disciplined, more rational you. Patience can overcome anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure, which you can apply both to your own teaching style, but also impart to your students.

How to get this coveted quality? Relax! You can immediately make progress by taking a few deep breaths and taking an extra 30 seconds to answer a student’s question, make a diagnosis, or reply to an irate patient. Remind yourself that all things take time.

#9: Emotional Intellect
Part of a teacher’s job is to help a student get through the course with success. Sometimes this means recognizing that specific students need extra help, and sometimes it means giving freer reign to a student who is doing especially well. Research tracking over 160 high performing individuals in a variety of industries and job levels revealed that emotional intelligence was two times more important in contributing to excellence than intellect and expertise alone. Emotional intelligence can help you discern what your students need, but it can also be a valuable tool to help you decide how to react in stressful teaching situations, navigate academic politics, and bond with students to give everyone a richer and more meaningful experience.

#8: Dedication
There is no question about it: nursing is a tough job. To be a nurse, a person needs endless dedication and a real belief that they are changing the world. To see dedication in a teacher inspires the students and shows them that even through many years of nursing, that the instructor has not lost their spark. In some ways, teaching a future nurse the art of determination is even more important than teaching those basic nursing skills. By being an example of dedication, the instructor is able to teach a valuable lesson that will help students break into their chosen profession and stay there.

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So, it’s official. This week I became a nursing student doing clinicals (again). This week was my first week walking the halls of a hospital system as a ‘Nurse Practitioner Student’. I must say it was a very eerie feeling (to say the least). I felt like I was back in my diploma program! Here I was (again) sweating bullets over every little detail concerning my participation in nursing ‘clinicals’. The really scary part is the NP program I am in is nice enough to slowly introduce us into this new role by taking baby-steps. This week I simply started an observational experience. So it wasn’t like I was actually required to ‘perform’ any role-specific duties… although it sure felt like it!!!

We are told to wear business casual and our lab coat – what do I wear??

Shoes – I need comfortable business casual shoes! I can’t spend all day on the floors in my tennis shoes or my crocs!

Holy crap! My lab coat. I have to wear a lab coat. Call me crazy, but it was quite surreal to wear the long lab coat.

My name badge – what should it say? What shouldn’t it say? Credentials? No credentials?

These are just some of the ridiculous things I think about. Like I said, it’s only going to get more stressful (readers beware -this is my preemptive warning).

It was also quite surreal to rub shoulders with the physicians, surgeons, physician assistants and nurse practitioners. I honestly had to train my brain to step away from the rigors and responsibilities of bedside care (while rounding on patients) to focus on the decision-making and thought processes of my preceptor (a physician). I need to learn how to start thinking beyond the bedside and develop my advanced assessment and diagnostic skills. I probably expect way too much out of myself this early on, but I feel so overwhelmed with fear it’s honestly indescribable.

How in the world do these advanced health care providers do what they do, in such split-second timing is just awe-inspiring to witness first hand. I never really ‘got it’ when I would round as the bedside nurse. I was focused on my responsibilities and my duties as the bedside nurse (not that there is anything wrong with that!). I didn’t have a real appreciation for the bazillion-and-one things that they have to process in order to make the decisions that need to be made.

Did I mention how terrified I am?

My hope is this fear will turn into gnarling dedication to improvement -otherwise I’m going to fail and fall flat on my face (cynically joking) .

I definitely have to not only step up my ‘game’, but I need to bring my ‘A game’ at all times.

This is going to be a fun semester!

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I think I’ve said this before. One of the greatest things about our career is the unlimited supply of choices and opportunity. The path our career takes is only limited by ourselves and our desire to move forward.

So would you be the least bit surprised by the unlimited number of choices a nurse has when it comes to picking a direction for an advanced degree? No, of course not. Advancing your nursing education is not as simple as “I’m going on to get my Masters degree in Nursing.” You have to pick a path as an advanced degree nurse.

Here are just a few of those options:

• Advanced Practice Nursing
  • Nurse Practitioner (Adult, Acute Care, Neonatal, Family)
  • Nurse Midwife
  • Nurse Anesthetist
• Nurse Educator
• Clinical Nurse Specialist
• Nurse Manager (Nurse Leader)
• Nursing Informatics
• Masters in Nursing specialty in:
  • Acute care
  • Adult
  • Family
  • Geriatric
  • Neonatal
  • Palliative care
  • Pediatric
  • Psychiatric
  • Obstetrics and Gynecological

Now throw all that into a bowl and add a dash of PhD and/or DNP (Doctorate of Nursing Practice) and you got yourself a confusing swirl of opportunities just waiting for the picking!

Yes. It seems overwhelming enough to cause a slight headache, but when you break it down into its most simple forms, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

When I finished my BSN (I did an RN-to-BSN program) I knew I wanted to continue on and advance my degree. I just wasn’t quite sure which direction to choose. What if I choose wrong? What if I change my mind? What’s the best decision? What’s the most profitable direction? Which path takes the longest amount of time? Which path takes the shortest amount of time?

These questions and many others all have their relevance. They really do. The problem is, none of them are as important as this question:

Where do you see yourself practicing (in 5 years), where it would NOT be considered a job?

This questions is what really ultimately guides you on to your next adventure. Of all those choices, which one could you do on a daily basis and not consider it your ‘job’? Where do you feel you make the most impact?

Let’s put it another way. In your current practice as a nurse – where are you most happy? And does that happiness elicit the most ‘effect’ to the patients you care for? For me, it’s always been Critical Care. I’ve felt the care I give at the bedside makes the most impact on my patients. I’m not meant to work in an office. I’m not meant to care for the ‘not well’. I’m meant to care for the critically ill. It’s where I am most happy.

I love making the difference we make. I want to take that feeling and extend it. I want to expand my skills and knowledge. I want to advance my career where I know I’ll be happy, and where I know I believe I’m needed.

One final thought on those myriad of choices you can make when considering an advanced degree. I would HIGHLY recommend you ‘shadow’ someone already doing the job. I remember shadowing a CRNA when I was trying to make my decision on advancing my career. I small part of me wondered if being a Nurse Anesthetist is something I wanted to do. After shadowing the CRNA I realized that it wasn’t for me.

In the end, the choice to advance your career is all about you. Don’t let the naysayers or the recruiters try and sway your choices. As a nurse, we tend to deliver our care from our hearts. Let your heart help you make this decision.

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I wonder if there should be a “specialty-match” assessment of some sort that nurses could take pre-employment. Kind of like an online dating profile, it would put you in a specialty perfectly suited to who you are. Reality is that not all specialties attract the same personalities. And just thinking that because you or I are a good fit in one area does not mean we could just work anywhere in the hospital and have a perfect match.

For example, I love L&D. Really, I don’t think I could work anywhere else. But sometimes I have dreams of going to the ED. I was an ED tech in nursing school and miss that kind of adrenaline. But I think I would burn out in ED. My visions are of the ED being one way, yet in fact I know it is a really tough specialty and I probably don’t have the personality for it, being the sensitive person that I am. Know thyself, and all of that. So I stay in the specialty that miraculously fits me quite well. I got lucky.

Then there are my nursing school friends who, four years out, are stuck in specialties they hate. But we nurses become so highly-specialized, it becomes almost impossible to move around within the system.

So what does the unit do when a nurse shows up who just isn’t “cut out” for the specialty? In my experience, things can get really ugly. Doctors act out, nurses act out, patients complain—it seems that when a person gets rooted in a specialty that they hate, and that hates them, things are miserable for everyone. And if the nurse doesn’t see the problem—they become convinced they can make it work—everyone is at a loss. And face it, it is difficult to fire someone, move them to another unit, etc. Change does not come easily in the hospital.

The result of a “stuck nurse” is that they become unhappy (or oblivious), their co-workers are unhappy, and ultimately the patients get stuck with a nurse who just is not up to par for that specialty. I hate watching it! Yes, eventually it pans out, but usually in a negative way. I’ve seen it go on for years. Nurses who end up in this situation often make mistakes, burn-out, get angry and explosive, and everyone suffers. Nurses will even change professions just to get out.

It seems there should be a better way than just “guessing” to match up nurses and specialties. Until we find that way, things will continue to be difficult for nurses who are not a “fit” on their floor.

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For those of you who do not know, I am a full-time student in an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program. It’s still currently a Master’s prepared program. You graduate with your MSN and then can sit for your national certification exam in your chosen specialty (ACNP, FNP, etc.)

What most don’t know is that Nurse Practitioners, Clinical Nurse Specialists, Nurse Mid-Wives, and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist all sort of start out with the same basic masters level education. Now, I’m just talking the basic courses here that are common to all the aforementioned advanced degrees. Your Advanced Pharmacology, Advanced Physiology, Research classes, Statistic classes, Health Education/Promotion classes, etc. Obviously each program will have a VERY different curriculum, but in the beginning and at it’s most basic level we all take the same Master’s entry-level courses.

I have shared classes and classroom with all the above mentioned students. Each curriculum is of course diverse in its own nature, and everybody is of course on a different timeline. It’s not uncommon to have 1st semester students with 5th or 6th semester students in the same class. It all depends on where you started, what program your in, etc., etc.

The whole point of my rambling is this. Apparently I’m not following the majority rule (yet again). I have lost count how many times I get asked how I like the Anesthesia program. Or have fellow classmates ask me about Anesthesia clinicals, or how did my Anesthesia clinicals go. Or they ask me for advice on Anesthesia classes and professors.

Some classmates will just blatantly ask me “You’re in Anesthesia right?”. When I reply no and explain I’m in the ACNP program, they look at me like I have 4 eyes or I have horns coming out of my head. (OK.. Maybe not that extreme).

But they have to take a step back. I have even had 2 students ask me why I’m not in Anesthesia???

Seriously?

Does the majority think that I chose Nurse Practitioner as an afterthought, or maybe as a back up plan or something? Or maybe they think I’m an Anesthesia flunky and this was my next best option?

I think this new myth rolls over from the other myth that all male nurses choose emergency/critical care nursing. Once again, probably the majority of male nurses CHOOSE to be in critical care or emergency nursing. I sure don’t ask the ones not in these specialty areas why they aren’t there.

*sigh*

I could be blowing this whole thing out of proportion ( I do that often). Maybe it’s just me and my personality? Who knows.

What I do know is that I made a conscious and deliberate choice to pursue a career as an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. A choice I am very proud of and a role I am eager to step into.

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After you finish nursing school, or if you’re considering going back for more training, choosing the right nursing specialty becomes your chief focus.

With so many specialties to choose from, many prospective nurses find it difficult to just pick one, but with nearly every specialty requiring candidates to pass a series of exams and fulfill a period of on-the-job training, time is of the essence!

Pay should not be your only consideration when deciding on a specialty, but the list below of the highest paying nursing specialties, provided by our friends at NursingLink.com, is a good primer on which types of nurses have the greatest earning potential.

A special note on gender and pay here. Many contend that there is an income disparity between male nurses and female nurses. With so many myths and gender stereotypes about male nurses floating around, we thought we’d try to set the record straight. Although it isn’t definitive, most salary surveys we reviewed show that male and female nurses earn roughly equal pay (averaging at $45K-$55K year). Pay should be based on duties performed. Not gender. Unless it is earned through years of service or specialty, we all agree that increased pay based on a person’s sex is a form of discrimination that should have gone out of the window years ago!

You worked hard to get where you are. Now you want to make the most of your career by obtaining the highest salary possible!

#10: Neonatal Nurse, Average Salary: $74,000

Neonatal Nurses care for sick and/or premature newborn babies. They also provide consultation to the newborn’s family during what can be an emotionally draining period.

#9: Gerontological Nurse Practitioner, Average Annual Salary: $75,000

Gerontological Nurse Practitioners (GNPs) hold advanced degrees specializing in geriatrics. They are able to diagnose and manage their patients’ often long-term and debilitating conditions and provide regular assessments to patients’ family members. Similar to all geriatrics nurses, GNPs must approach nursing holistically and pay special attention to maintaining a comforting bedside manner for their elderly patients.

#8: Clinical Nurse Specialist, Average Salary: $76,000

Clinical Nurse Specialists develop uniform standards for quality care and work with staff nurses to ensure that those standards are being met. They are required to possess strong managerial skills and an ability to anticipate potential staff/patient conflicts.

#7: Nurse Practitioner, Average Salary: $78,000

Nurse practitioners provide basic preventive health care to patients, and increasingly serve as primary and specialty care providers in mainly medically underserved areas. The most common areas of specialty for nurse practitioners are family practice, adult practice, women’s health, pediatrics, acute care, and gerontology; however, there are many other specialties. In most States, advanced practice nurses can prescribe medications.

#6: Orthopedic Nurse,  Average Salary: $81,000

Orthopedic Nurses provide care for patients suffering for musculoskeletal ailments, such as arthritis, joint replacement, and diabetes. They are responsible for educating patients on these disorders and on available self care and support systems.

#5: Pediatric Endocrinology Nurse, Average Salary: $81,000

Pediatric Endocrinology Nurses provide care to young children who are suffering from diseases and disorders of the endocrine system. This often involves educating both parents and children on the the physical and sexual development issues that arise from these disorders.

#4: Certified Nurse Midwife, Average Salary $84,000

Nurse midwives provide primary care to women, including gynecological exams, family planning advice, prenatal care, assistance in labor and delivery, and neonatal care. CNMs work in hospitals, clinics, health departments, homes and private practices. Midwives will often have to work unpredictable hours (due to the unpredictable nature of childbirth). They should have good communications skills should be willing to commit to a holistic approach to patient care.

#3: Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, Average Salary: $95,000

Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners are advanced practice nurses who provide care and consultation to patients suffering from psychiatric and mental health disorders.

#2: Nurse Researcher, Average Salary: $95,000

Nurse Researchers work as analysts for private companies or health policy nonprofits. They publish research studies based on data collected on specific pharmaceutical/medical/nursing product and practices.

#1:  Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, Average Salary: $135,000

A Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist administers anesthesia to patients. They collaborate with surgeons, anesthesiologists, dentists and podiatrists to safely administer anesthesia medications.

See all of our articles on nurse salaries, including salary maps, salary projections, hourly and yearly salary reports for top nurse jobs, and more!!!

Related Reads:

The perks of being a military nurse

Nursing infomatics — another career avenue

Holistic nursing and alternative healthcare

I can’t wait.  I learned over the past couple of years since leaving the ED, and especially in the past two months, that I am an emergency nurse.  Just knowing I am going back makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

What did I miss the most?  Being cursed at, being spit at, being kicked, punched and bit.  Yes!  I missed all of it.  Along with the teamwork that ED nurses and the rest of the team have, the interaction I have with my patients and just the day to day work in the ED.

I have seen the joy of child birth in the ED, I have seen the heartache of death more times that I can even remember.  I have seen the best of society in people that acted heroically, and I have seen the worst of society when a drunk driver destroyed an entire family.  I have seen people do the funniest things that I still laugh at today, and I have seen people in the deepest depths of sadness.

I am an ER nurse, and I am proud of it!

It is miserable to find oneself  in an area of nursing that doesn’t fit–for me that would have been med/surg or ortho. Yet I know many nurses who love those two areas and despise even the idea of labor and delivery. Plenty of nurses have accepted one job out of school only to find out that the job was a lousy fit, necessitating a specialty switch.

Going into nursing school, I knew exactly what specialty I was persuing: labor and delivery. I was so intensely focused during nursing school on labor that I would get very emotional whenever an instructor or other well-meaning person suggested that I go into med/surg at graduation. I can remember the precise day when, at my first obstetrics clinical, my instructor stated, “This hospital takes new grads into labor and delivery! You DO NOT have to work med/surg to specialize.” I could have shouted with joy!

So, in the fall of my senior year, I applied only to that same hospital, knowing I had a shot at my “dream” job. I bugged them to death for an interview and then was thrilled that they hired me within a week of that same interview. I was the first person in my nursing class with a GN job–and in OB to boot!

Recently, I had a nursing student assigned to me who stated that she wanted to get a GN job in telemetry. Yet every time she would go into our patient’s room (who was actively laboring) she would just light up and get very excited.  As the day progressed she started to ask more and more questions about becoming a labor nurse. She even stayed three hours past clinicals to support our patient through childbirth. I told her straight up, “I see a labor nurse in the making.” A few days later, when I saw her again, she told me she had been converted: that one good experience in labor and delivery had sold her on the specific vocation!

In my experience, I have seen student nurses either start school with an idea of what specialty they desired, or they have been seduced into a specialty by graduation. Only a couple of people in my class were unsure of where they wanted to end up, and both started on a med/surg floor straight out of school. The great thing about medical-surgical is that nurses “see it all” and can get some idea of what direction they want to go—many people believe med/surg rounds out new nurses. Yet, I have heard of med/surg nurses getting “stuck”—i.e. they started in med/surg wanting to move on into, say, L&D or Peds, only to find they had become specialists in their own area and had a hard time getting a job outside it!

Most nurses, in my experience, eventually just “click” with one specialty or another: either it touches their heart, ignites a passion within them, challenges them academically, or inspires them in some way. The issue is really finding the right job within that specialty, and in my opinion that happens fresh out of school. Why not just go for it? And the key is realizing that it is OK to change specialties if one doesn’t fit. Happy nurses love the specialty they are in!

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I have written in the past about what I was looking for in the performance of nurses that I hire.  About how making an impression is what is most important.  Nurses that are struggling to do well but are really working hard will get my support 100%.  But as soon as I see they are not trying anymore, I am ready to let them go.

I have not made a secret of the fact that I am not happy with my new job.  It is not for me.  I am not sure what it is, but I know now that I am not a clinic nurse.  Not because I think I am better, but because I am not there.  These nurses there are amazing.  Their knowledge and critical thinking is out of this world.

I think my dissatisfaction with this job is really starting to show to my new boss.  I have been talked to a couple of times about my performance.  And when I walk back to my work station, I know I need to step it up, and work to my real potential, but I just can’t do it.  I don’t know why, it’s all in my head.

I know what I need to do.  I know that my performance is showing that I am not trying.  And….I really want to do well.  I really want to be successful.  But the fact that I know I am not cut out for this type of nursing just keeps getting in the way.

It is Saturday now.  I have this weekend to get my head straight and either step it up, or move on.  If I am not going to step it up, I am just wasting my time and the organizations time.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

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What Does a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Actually Do?

As with most fields in nursing, what Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners can do and what they may do varies across the country and with each board of nursing. But here are some general duties of a practitioner:

• Taking histories and doing physical and mental examinations and assessments
• Screening for mental health issues
• Interpreting diagnostic and lab tests
• Diagnosing psychiatric disorders and mental conditions, distinguishing between mental conditions that can cause psychiatric symptoms
• Therapy for individuals, families or groups
• Treatment of certain medical issues
• Education and public awareness of mental illness
• Monitoring patient medications and treatment
• Documenting
• Working on preventative health programs
• Referring patients to specialists for areas outside the practitioner’s scope
• Working with other healthcare practitioners to provide care
• Teaching other nurses

As you can see, the job description differs significantly from that of the nurses who work on the floor with the patients. There is hands-on work, but at a different level.

Educational requirements –>