Registered Nursing- Is it Right for You?
The job of a registered nurse is quite tough. A registered nurse working in hospital should have knowledge of starting an IV, interaction of particular drug in patient and should also have knowledge about symptoms of various diseases. The theory of nursing includes complete care of a patient during the whole day. To meet this requirement of a patient, in most of the hospitals, a nurse in one shift has to handle only six patients, so that she can serve each patient finely and meet all requirements of patients, who can be observed in hospital because nurses are always on the move. Most of the nurses working in hospitals are satisfied from their work and these registered nurses get good salary.
Average Salaries
Legally, the average salary of a registered nurse should be around $59,061 /year. As you can observe, the above mentioned salary is good enough for a person having only bachelor degree and qualified state certification exam. In many professions, a person having masters’ degree do not get that much of salary as one registered nurse gets. The initial salary for registered nurse depends on the company or the status of hospital she/he is working. However, initial salary for fresh-out graduate nurse get at lest $43,000 of salary per year.
Bonuses
A registered nurse gets number of bonuses, if she don’t get then she can negotiate with company or hospital in which she works. As many countries were facing the shortage nurses and numbers of hospitals are in search of good nurses. Many hospitals are committing to provide a bonus of $2,000-$3,000 per year to the nurses who were interested to join their hospital. Some hospitals are also committing to provide the bonus of $5,000 for three years. Beyond the bonus if any nurse is interested to work in weekend shift he/she will extra salary of that work. Nurses were also “called in” during their off day and offered premium pay of that day.
Certifications
Nurses can demand for higher salary if they have additional certificates along with their graduation certificate. The registered nurse who is CCS (clinical care specialist), CDE (certified diabetes educator), ACLS (advance cardiac life support) or having any special certificate, can ask for higher initial salary. Hospitals also repay for taking specialty certified course, so the profession of nursing is a win from both sides.
Choose the right job
All registered nurses are not subject to same work, working field of nurses may be different and salary also depends on it. For example, the nurse who is subjected to work on extra cardiac training (telemetry), pediatric unit or intensive care unit will get higher pay as compared to other. Each floor needs some special quality in registered nurse. The nurses working in office of doctor, concerned with clerical work of hospital or a school nurse will get less salary as compared to the nurses working on specialist floor.
In nursing, a person get bonus, education and future carrier, so registered nursing is the challenging, rewarding and a Nobel profession.
-Bruno Auger
