Spring 2002

Volume 5 Number 2
A publication of Macon State College

NURSING CAREERS: A LOOK AT THE FACTS

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment for registered nurses will grow faster than the average for all occupations through 2008.

Ursula Holleman studies an x-ray at Houston Medical Center.

Nursing students comprise more than half of all health professions students.

Nurses comprise the largest single component of hospital staff, are the primary providers of hospital patient care and deliver most of the nation's long-term care.

Most health care services involve some form of care by nurses. Although 60 percent of all employed RNs work in hospitals, many are employed in a wide range of other settings, including private practices, public health agencies, primary care clinics, home health care, outpatient surgicenters, health maintenance organizations, nursing-school-operated nursing centers, insurance and managed care companies, nursing homes, schools, mental health agencies, hospices, the military, and industry. Other nurses work in careers as college and university educators preparing future nurses or as scientists developing advances in many areas of health care and health promotion.

Though often working collaboratively, nursing does not "assist" medicine or other fields. Nursing operates independent of, not auxiliary to, medicine and other disciplines. Nurses' roles range from direct patient care to case management, establishing nursing practice standards, developing quality assurance procedures, and directing complex nursing care systems.

With more than four times as many RNs in the United States as physicians, nursing delivers an extended array of health care services, including primary and preventive care by advanced, independent nurse practitioners in such clinical areas as pediatrics, family health, women's health, and gerontological care. Nursing's scope also includes care by certified nurse-midwives and nurse anesthetists, as well as care in cardiac, oncology, neonatal, neurological, and obstetric/gynecological nursing and other advanced clinical specialties.

The primary pathway to professional nursing, as compared to technical-level practice, is the four-year bachelor of science degree in nursing (BSN). Registered nurses are prepared either through a BSN program; a two-year college program, receiving an associate's degree in nursing; or a three-year hospital training program, receiving a hospital diploma. All take the same state-licensing exam. (The number of diploma programs has declined steadily -- to less than 10 percent of all basic RN education programs -- as nursing education has shifted from hospital-operated instruction into the college and university system.)

Source: American Association of Colleges of Nursing