The Demand for Registered Nurses
There are many positions that can only be filled by RNs. Over one half of the RNs that are in the workforce work in hospitals. There will always be positions for registered nurses; there is usually a shortage of RNs in most smaller hospitals. New nurses coming fresh out of nursing school cannot keep up with the rate that nurses are leaving the profession.
Many RNs choose to advance their careers and do work outside of the realm of patient care. Many nurses start out as associate degree nurses and climb the ladder of success through continuing education. Many nurses get the higher degrees and go into the corporate sector. Of course, there are still many registered nurses in many of the larger hospitals, but the nurses may be offered better pay or better opportunities if they leave their present employment.
Many RNs are going into jobs that do not involve nursing care. RNs often specialize in different fields. Many nurses graduate nursing school and go on to training in their chosen specialty. For instance, as an RN, you could specialize into the field of anesthesia. You could learn how to become a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA). The demand for nurses isn't so much that there aren't any nurses, it is that nurses are specializing in other fields.
A registered nurse working in a hospital as a staff nurse can make anywhere from $40,000 to $68,000, while a nurse anesthetist can earn an average salary of $73,000 and up per year. The registered nurse goes to a registered nursing school of anesthesia for a period of 24 to 36 months and earns a master's degree in anesthesia. As a nurse anesthetist your job would be to administer anesthesia, and monitor the effects of anesthesia on the surgical patient.
There is a demand for registered nurses in the nurse practitioner field. Many RNs work as nurse practitioners. Nurse practitioners see patients, and write prescriptions, just as doctors do. Many patients see nurse practitioners rather than going to physicians. For many patients, seeing a nurse practitioner is easier than seeing their doctors, because of the long wait times. For many people, the nurse practitioner is the only "doctor" their patients see.
Nurse practitioners come in many forms. Many RNs go to midwifery school. Many of these nurse midwife practitioners have offices in a medical building and the patients come and visit the nurse midwife, instead of the doctor. Nurse practitioners take a big load off the physicians. The nurse practitioners can handle the more routine medical problems that patients have, and the physicians can handle the more serious problems.
Sadly, because so many nurses specialize, there are sometimes shortages of RNs in some hospitals. To compensate for the demand for registered nurses many hospitals and nursing homes hire LPNs and LVNs to fill the void. There are private hospitals that only hire RNs; there are many medical centers with a good balance between RNs and LPNs. However, there are many county hospitals that are very short of RNs and they must train and certify their LPNs to take on more professional functions that RNs would normally do.
With so many nurses going into specialty fields, and the imbalance between the incoming new RNs, and the departure of the older RNs from the workforce, there will always be a demand for registered nurses. Many of the nurses leaving the profession are of the baby boomer generation. Many of older nurses will also become patients who need nursing care. In the last 5 years over 125,000 RNs have become nurse practitioners. With so many nurses becoming nurse practitioners there are, unfortunately, hospitals that have a shortage of registered nurses.
Published: 2009-09-16
