A Day In The Life Of A Nurse
"Nurses put the Care in heatlhcare" 1. As such, they play a wide and varying role in the healthcare industry. This series of articles is intended to give the lay reader a better understanding of who nurses are, what we do and how we are educated. For the healthcare professional and for nursing professionals, we will share with you stories of what your colleagues are doing in the U.S. and around the world.
To obtain the information used in these articles, a "cyber-interview" form was produced. This was distributed to over 500 hundred nurses via e-groups. Nurses reading this article may also complete the cyber-interview form by going to http://www.nurse-recruiter.com and click on the "Cyber-Interview" link and complete the form. By doing so, your information will be included in this series. Of course, all visitors are welcome and encouraged to drop by the site and see the questions to which the nurses are responding.
Nursing is a profession of caring. It is a profession that challenges every emotion that a human being can experience. In this first article we will give you a nursing primer: who nurses are, how they are educated, and the types of nursing care delivery systems found in the U.S. and around the world. This will be followed by a series of articles that describe what nurses do in a variety of clinical and non-clinical settings (hospitals, nursing homes, home care, research, education, business, etc).
Traditionally, there are three levels of nurses provided to patients, RNs, LPNs and CNAs. Today, however, you will find a new type of nursing care giver in the hospital setting. These new care givers have different titles in different hospitals but we will use the term "Nursing Tech" for the purpose of these articles.
Registered Nurses (RNs) are the top educated nurses. They are the "professional" level nurse. The nursing education of an RN can vary from an Associates Degree in Science (ASN) to a doctoral degree in Nursing Science (DNSc). RNs are the nurses you see most frequently in the acute care or hospital setting. You will also find RNs that were educated in what were called diploma schools. This later program is almost non-existent today in the U.S., but these are highly skilled technically prepared professionals. Nurse-Practitioners are RNs that have completed at least a masters degree program and obtain additional state licensure to practice at this level of nursing.
Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) have one to two years of education at an approved post-secondary school. They are technically skilled but less well educated in the sciences than RNs. They are seen less and less in the acute care setting. They are the most common nurses seen in the Long-Term Care setting.
Latest Articles