When it comes to career choices, nursing can open a wide range of options for you. If you get a nursing degree, you can opt for any of the following available specialties:

• Ambulatory nurses are those assisting the doctors in their offices and clinics.
• Critical care nurses belong to intensive care units where patients with acute problems are to be attended.
• Emergency nurses are for the emergency purposes in a hospital.
• Hospice nurses take care of the incurable patients.
• Infusion nurses are the care takers for medication and food through injections.
• Preoperative nurses help the surgeons in the operation theatre.
• Radiology nurses take care of the patients who are being given radiology treatment.

Apart from taking care of the patients and helping the doctors, nursing offers you a wide range of areas to work in ; from a small office to a large hospital building. As you can see for yourself, nursing is not at all a restricted job to take up. Rather nursing gives you a huge opportunity of taking decisions for the safety and care of others.

The training of a nurse can be provided by the hospitals in different ways. There are many hospitals that offer you a diploma course after which you get an associate’s degree along with an entry level job. But if you want to maximize your options, you should always opt for a bachelor’s degree. Moreover, like any other career, your position in the market is directly proportional to the amount of experience and the quality of training you have done. You will be able to get the responsibilities of a supervisor and will be at a much better position if you go for a four-year degree. 

Apart from the training program , state licensing is also required. Although these requirements differ from one state to another, it always comprises of training along with a nursing exam at national level.

Although you may get a nursing degree from anywhere, the training part of the degree is not available everywhere. So, an online training facility can help you a lot by removing the geographic barriers. This has made nursing a more available career option.

Online training has become a rage among the nurses as it helps you to improve your career options without quitting the job you are currently pursuing. So even if you want to switch from one career to another or upgrade your degree to a better one, online programs are of great help. They are much simpler and comprehensive to pursue.

If you are not comfortable leaving your country and working somewhere else, then nursing is the right career for you. It has the least amount of outsourcing among all the other courses. Moreover, there is an increasing demand for nurses to take care of the elderly or the ill, so the future is very bright for nurses. 

If you are a Certified Nursing Assistant, you may get an opportunity to be a nurse’s aide i.e. to work under other experienced nurses or healthcare providers. This will give them an opportunity to work directly with the patients and thoroughly understand their needs and wants. Most certified Nursing Assistants get an opportunity to work in hospitals and nursing homes.

One of the major benefits of a certified nursing assistant is that, you get to work with patients and understand how to keep them comfortable by dressing, feeding and bathing them. If you want to do some good deeds and help the poor and the ill, then a certified nursing assistant’s job is best suited for you. 

However, there is a drawback in this job. You may have limited responsibilities and access. You just need to assist other nurses. You cannot take up decisions for the patients and hence you will not be able to get involved a lot. But a certified nursing assistant is one of the best ways to gain experience and also continue your studies, that is if you plan to have a long term career. 

You can also opt to be a Licensed Practical Nurse (LNP) or a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) as it also has the duties similar to a Registered Nurse (RN) . However, you can get a health degree much more quickly in this case.

A licensed Practical Nurse can work in hospitals or healthcare institutions, clinics and nursing homes as well. They have the advantage of working with patients directly. But they can only do the smaller tasks related to patients such as giving injections, feeding them, dressing wounds, etc.

One of the biggest benefits of working as an LPN is that you get the healthcare degree very quickly. If you opt for a Registered Nurse Course, you have to do a 3 year training program as a full time student. But you can get away with this if you want to become a Licensed Practical Nurse. It can be done in one year only. So you can get into the actual field very quickly.

However, one of the drawbacks of this career is that you have to pursue advanced studies to go forward in your career. It is just a career path. You have to study a lot if you want more from your career.

Licensed Practical Nurse is a very good and quick career opportunity if you consider it as your starting point as it requires only one year of a training program. But if you want to move from being a Licensed Practical Nurse to a Registered Nurse and earn more money than what you can earn by being a Licensed Practical Nurse, then you have to take up the 3 year bachelor course and become a Registered Nurse. Otherwise growth in your career will become very difficult. 

Taking up the bachelor’s degree course while working as a Licensed Practical Nurse, can be a very good as well as a feasible option for you. This can be made possible if you go for an online training and educational program. It will be the best possible choice if you do not want to lose your current job of a Licensed Practical Nurse. 

The main difference between a Licensed Practical Nurse and a Registered Nurse is the training program. Registered Nurses go through a more advanced and specialized training program than Licensed Practical Nurses. Hence they have limited access and responsibilities related to the patients. They are only given some general tasks realated the patients because of the lack of their specialized training. 
Their job consists of basic patient care work, monitoring patient data and reporting it to the seniors, collect reports and samples, etc. 

If you are a Registered Nurse, you have the power to analyze the patients’ needs and work according to your choice of treatment. The specialized training gives them an upper hand. A Registered Nurse generally works in emergency rooms, Doctor’s office, and hospice or intensive care units. You can perform a lot of functions such as choosing proper medications for the patients, helping the doctors in diagnosis and a lot of other responsible tasks.

Along with so many responsibilities, you may also get an opportunity for supervisory responsibilities and other high level responsibilities. In a nut shell, you may say that upgrading your career from a Licensed Practical Nurse to a Registered Nurse may change the level of responsibilities you posses, to such an extent that you could have never imagined if you were a Licensed Practical Nurse. 
So if you want to change your career from working as a Licensed Practical Nurse to Registered Nurse, then there are two components that need to be taken care of: a Formal Degree followed by a State Licensing. The formal Degree is the Bachelor of Science in Nursing. It is usually of four years but your work as a Licensed Practical Nurse may also get counted during the course. 
After getting the formal degree, you have to get the state licensing. For this you will have to take national level exam and clear it to become a Registered Nurse. 

The fact that a Registered Nurse earns much more than a Licensed Practical Nurse is very obvious. In the year 2006, as Medial National Incomes stated, Registered Nurses earned more than 50 percent better salaries than the Licensed Practical Nurses. So your move form Licensed Practical Nurse to a Registered Nurse will be completely justified because of all the opportunities that you will have. 

You will find that you may take up nursing as a profession at various levels but taking up this job as a Registered Nurse is the best possible option for you. Although other jobs like becoming a Licensed Practical Nurse or becoming a Nurse’s aide will definitely make you enter the working field very quickly, economically, you will be a step ahead if you take up the job of a Registered Nurse. 

After money, comes the job satisfaction for most of you. So if you are satisfied when you get more opportunities and responsibilities, then working as a Registered Nurse is the correct job for you. However, if you are afraid of the decision making responsibilities, then a Licensed Practical Nurses job will be best suited for you. 

So, to put in another way, Registered will be best job for you if you want to get into the nursing field. The best advantage about nursing as a job is that it will be in demand because people who grow old require nurses; people who are ill require nurses, and people will always get old and fall ill. Hence the demand is ever increasing. If your educational background is good and you work hard to achieve your goals, the growth in this job is way above imagination. 

No one can feel or tell you about the feelings of being a Registered nurse. It’s only them who can perceive it. Being a Registered Nurse, you can also take up social responsibilities and work for the environment as well. 

If you prefer a friendly work environment with a personal touch, you should go for a small clinic, but if you want challenging responsibilities, then you should opt for the emergency room nurse job. Apart from these, you also have other types of jobs as well. You may get a job in operating rooms, testing labs, radiology centers and many more. You can also opt for home health services. It requires taking care of the patients at their home. So you get a lot of variety in the atmosphere you work. There are a lot of choices for you in the nursing profession. 

Many people go for the nursing profession because they want to help the needy and the sick. One of the least known facts about the nursing profession is that not all the nurses get to deal with people. Some have to do the work of record keeping and behind the scenes job as well, so that the whole process runs smoothly.

Registered nurses posses either an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree in nursing. The bachelors’ degree is of much more importance if you intend to get a promotion in your career. 

You may continue your training even after becoming a Registered nurse for your career advancement. The nursing profession is subject to changes because of the changing techniques of treatment and invention of newer machines. But the core purpose of this profession will be to take care of the patients. You will definitely succeed in the profession if you have the quality to succeed and the zeal to work harder to achieve your goals.