Demand for registered nurses to continue well past 2011

It may seem surprising that registered nursing, already the largest health care occupation with 2.6 million jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, could possibly grow more.

And yet, employment of registered nurses is expected to increase by an above-average 22 percent from now until 2018. It's a U.S. News and World Report "hot job for 2011," in addition to several other rankings as one of the best career choices this year.

Experts attribute the growth, in part, to a growing emphasis on wellness and preventive care -- including addressing poor lifestyle choices like bad diet or smoking, which nurses are adept at doing -- in addition to a growing elderly population that's living longer now than in decades past.

And then there's the small fact that the new health care bill will bring roughly 30 million adults, children and elderly into the system, according to Kathy McCauley, Ph.D., a professor of cardiovascular nursing and the associate dean for academic programs at the University of Pennsylvania.

"People's health care needs are huge right now," she said.

The school has gotten a surge of applicants recently for both the undergraduate and graduate programs, and the quality of the application pool has also increased, McCauley said, reflecting an interest in nursing from "the best and brightest in the country." There's also a strong population of people who are getting their second degrees and taking advantage of the school's program that accepts liberal arts credits from their original degree and puts them through nursing school in a year and a half, helping to keep up with the rapidly growing need for RNs.

Job possibilities and specialties for RNs are virtually endless, from geriatric nurses to transplant nurses to nurses who focus on a particular disease or condition. There are also four types of advanced practice nurses who earn masters degrees: clinical nurse specialists, nurse anesthetists, nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners.

Nurse practitioner will be one of the most in-demand specialties, McCauley said, because nurse practitioners can function as primary care doctors helping to accommodate those 30 million people new to the health care system, able to make diagnoses and write prescriptions.

"Nurse practitioners can (provide primary care) in a cost-efficient way and can be just as effective as physicians," McCauley said.

Despite prospective growth in the field, landing a job in nursing requires the same commitment to career building as any other job search, and it starts in college. McCauley recommends finding a faculty mentor and taking every opportunity to help with research or visit the faculty member's practice -- anything that provides hands-on experience and helps the student narrow down his or her interests within the nursing field.

Perhaps even more critical in nursing than other fields, McCauley said, is loving your job.

"The common thing is that you want to make a difference and you want to help people," she said. "You cannot be really, truly fabulous if you don't have that as a foundation."

She also notes that you have to be a lifelong learner and adapt to changing research. Fifteen years ago, McCauley wouldn't have dreamed of teaching some of the treatments she teaches today. Or take Jamie Joy, a registered nurse at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Louis, whose mother is also an RN and, until recently, charted everything on paper instead of using a computer.

Joy specializes in cardiovascular and pulmonary care and is getting her master's degree to become a nurse practitioner. She said the best part of her job is talking to patients, getting to know them and then seeing them get to go home.

But there are many aspects of her career that are just like a regular desk job. Networking is critical, as is getting your foot in the door as an aid or care tech early on.

And Joy has a task list and a schedule to keep, just like the rest of us.

"It's a lot of time management and organizational skills," Joy said. "If you don't stay organized, you're staying late and your patients aren't getting good care."

Both she and Katie Brewer, M.S.N., R.N., senior policy analyst for the American Nurses Association, pointed out that nursing as a profession isn't likely to go anywhere, because people will always get sick and will want a person, not a computer or robot, to take care of them. And with an increasing emphasis on wellness and prevention, the role of RNs seems even more secure.

"It's a perennial profession," Brewer said. "We're always going to have people with health care needs, and now nurses aren't just caring for sick people, but well people too."

Courtesy Tribune Media Services