If you are thinking of choosing a career on LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse), you are on the right track, my friend! If you are still confused, I am here to take away all your confusions.
According to the current field survey, 752,300 LPNs are working only in USA with 36,720 new practical licensed nurse job opening each year. So you can understand how demanding job it is now!
Till date whenever we think of a Licensed Practical Nurse, image of “a lady standing beside a doctor” comes into our mind. Most of us still have the misconception that in the field of nursing we don’t have that much option. But this is not at all true now. We can find LPN everywhere. People are hiring them for various purposes.
It’s obvious that we will find a large number of LPNs standing bedside a patient but this is not the only place where we can find them. People are hiring nurses for various purposes. Many health insurance companies are hiring LPNs to answer patient’s query. LPNs are working as a care giver for Alzheimer’s and Dementia patients.
LPNs are also serving as an advocate for patients, families and communities. They are developing and managing nursing care plans, giving instructions to patients and families for proper care and helping individuals and groups in taking steps to improve and maintain their health.
We all know that nursing is a physically demanding jobs requiring standing for a long periods of time. It may happen that you won’t be able to stand for a long time due to some physical limitations but it doesn’t mean that you cannot be an LPN. You can go for non-clinical jobs such as teaching, management, operations, consulting, health finance, healthcare IT, process improvement and loads more. Some LPNs are working as medical writers also.
If you are a travel buff, then travel nursing career is waiting for you only. Being a travel nurse you will get to see the country, can make loads of friends all over the world and can have the experience of the lifetime. Here you need to work with a travel nurse company and they will provide you contracts. In case of travel nursing, generally the contracts are for three months at one place. Many hospitals allow travel nurse to resign contracts for up to one year.
If you want to be a nurse as well as your own boss, then Nurse entrepreneur is the correct choice for you. There are many ways to become a nurse entrepreneur such us legal nurse consulting, nursing agency owner, medical supply sales, medical transcription, travel nursing as an independent contractor, home health independent contractor, independent case manager. You can also conduct a Practical Nursing Online course.
Persons who want to work as a clinical nurse, they also have plenty of options such as operating room nurse, pediatric nurse, cardiac nurse, general medicine nurse, cardiothoracic nurse, haemodialysis nurse, nursery nurse, neurology nurse, psyche nurse, pulmonary nurse, oncology nurse, orthopaedic nurse, labor and delivery nurse and so on.
If you want to go for non-bed site types of LPN then clinical education specialist, lactation consultant, clinical research nurse, forensic nursing career, informatics nurse, telephone or triage nurse could be one of your preferences.
So the field of nursing has a wide range of career opportunity ranging from entry-level practitioner to doctorate level researches. LPN is one of the most flexible profession around with limitless personal and professional rewards.