Duties and Responsibilities
Regardless of their specialty, Registered nurses (RNs) are normally responsible to educate and treat patients, provide advice and emotional support to their patients and their patients families. RNs also record the symptoms and medical histories, carry out diagnostic tests and analyze the results, administer medications and treatment protocols and help with their patients' rehab and follow-up.

Many RNs teach patients and their families on the best methods to manage their injuries or illness, explain post treatment home care and self-administering medication and physical therapy.

Other RN's lecture and educate the public by speaking on the symptoms and warning signs of disease. They also are run blood drives, health screening and administer immunizations.

RNs are responsible for developing a plan of care or providing feedback to a current plan when caring for a patient. Plans often include responsibilities like administering medicines which includes verifying dosages to avoid interactions; initiating, maintaining and stopping intravenous lines for blood products, blood, and fluid; watching and recording patient activity and working with doctors and other health care workers.

Many RNs choose to specialize in one of the four general areas of patient care - some even specialize in multiple areas of patient care. RNs have the opportunity to choose the type of work setting or treatment to focus in like; perioperative nurses, who assist surgeons and work in operating room.

They could also choose to focus on a specific health condition; like diabetes management nurses, who work with diabetes patients. Other RN's focus on working with body systems or one or more body organs. Some, like dermatology nurses, focus on patients with skin problems while geriatric nurses work with the elderly.

Options are numerous for RNs that specialize in a work setting or treatment type. For example, ambulatory care nurses provide preventive care and treat patients covering a wide range of injuries and illnesses in both clinics and doctor's offices.

Critical care nurses are most likely to be found working in intensive or critical care hospital units caring for patients with acute, serious and complex injuries and illnesses that require close attention and constant medication protocols and therapies.

Trauma, also known as emergency nurses work in stand-alone emergency departments or hospitals and are responsible for providing initial assessment and care for patients with life-threatening conditions. In addition, a percentage of emergency nurses become qualified to work as transport nurses, which provide medical care in airplanes or helicopters to individuals during transport to the nearest hospital.

Holistic nurses treat their patient's spiritual and mental health in addition to their physical issues through treatments like acupuncture, biofeedback, aroma and massage therapy.

As follow up care after being discharged from a hospital, skilled nursing facility, long-term care or from rehab, home health care nurses provide at home patient care while palliative and hospice care nurses, most often provide patient care at home focused on maintaining quality of life, to terminally ill patients.

Specialization
RNs specializing in a specific disease or health condition work in a wide variety of work settings; including doctors' offices, outpatient facilities and hospitals.

A few of the specialties include addictions nurses, diabetes management nurses, genetics nurses and oncology nurses.

Other RNs that specialize in a specific organ or body system usually work in hospital specialty, critical care units or specialty clinics and outpatient care facilities.

A few of the specialties include cardiovascular nurses, dermatology nurses, gastroenterology nurses, gynecology nurses, nephrology nurses, neuroscience nurses, ophthalmic nurses, orthopedic nurses, otorhinolaryngology nurses and respiratory nurses.

Other RNs specialize by population are responsible for providing acute and preventive care in virtually all health care settings to the specific portion of the population that they specialize in.

A few of the specialties include newborns (neonatology), children and adolescents (pediatrics), and the elderly (gerontology or geriatrics).

Work Atmosphere
A good percentage of RNs work in comfortable health care facilities, while public and home health nurses travel to their patients' home or school or where ever they are located. In addition, RNs can spend long periods of time standing, walking and bending and for those RNs caring for patents' that require 24-hour care they are often required to work weekends, nights and holidays. Some RNs may also be required to be on call, which requires that they come in on short notice at any time they are needed.

However, nursing does have its hazards; primarily in clinics or hospitals where they work in close contact with patients who have infectious diseases or work in alongside harmful or potential toxic or hazardous solutions and medications.

Education and Training
There are three primary paths to becoming a registered nursing; a bachelor's of science degree in nursing (BSN), an associate degree in nursing (ADN) or a diploma. While BSN programs traditional take about 4 years to complete, ADN degrees, which historically have been offered by community and junior colleges, take 2 or 3 years to complete.

Many RNs with an ADN or diploma enroll in bachelor's programs after getting hired and take classes at night or on weekends to prepare for a wider range of nursing opportunities. They find an entry-level position and then take advantage of tuition reimbursement benefits to work toward a BSN by completing an RN-to-BSN program.

Accelerated BSN programs are available for those with a bachelor's or higher degree in another field and are interested in moving into nursing.

Accelerated BSN programs last 12 to 18 months and provide the quickest route to a BSN for individuals who already hold a degree. MSN programs also are available for individuals who hold a bachelor's or higher degree in another field.

For those considering an advanced degree it's worth noting that a virtual world of additional opportunities opens up for those individuals with a BSN or MSN degree.

In fact, many career paths are only available for those nurses with a bachelor's or master's degree. A bachelor's degree often is necessary for administrative positions and is a requirement for admission to graduate nursing programs in consulting, teaching, research and all four advanced practice nursing specialties - clinical nurse specialists, nurse anesthetists, nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners.

Licensing
After graduating from an approved nursing program; in order to obtain a nursing license, you must pass the NCLEX-RN examination - this is a requirement of all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.

Nurses may be licensed in more than one State, either by examination or by the endorsement of a license issued by another State. The Nurse Licensure Compact Agreement allows a nurse who is licensed and permanently resides in one of the member States to practice in the other member States without obtaining additional licensure.

Foreign-educated and foreign-born nurses wishing to work in the United States must obtain a work visa. To obtain the visa, nurses must undergo a federal screening program to ensure that their education and licensure are comparable to that of a U.S. educated nurse, that they have proficiency in written and spoken English, and that they have passed either the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) Qualifying Examination or the NCLEX-RN.

Certification and Advancement
Some RNs begin their careers as licensed practical nurses or nursing aides and then go back to school to receive their RN degree. Most RNs begin as staff nurses in a hospital and as they gain experience and if they receive good performance reviews, they are given the opportunity to move into positions of higher responsibility.

For those nurses pursuing or wanting to get into the management side of nursing, they can advance from assistant unit manager or head nurse to higher level positions like chief nurse, or assistant director or director. It have become more common over to require one to have a graduate or higher advanced degree in nursing of health administration to be considered qualified for the higher level nursing management positions.

Employment
Registered nurses represent the largest of the health care occupations with around 2.55 million jobs in 2006. Most RNs work in hospitals, about 50%, about 7.5% working in doctors’ offices, a little over 5% working in home health care or nursing care facilities and a big majority of the remaining RNs working for the government in some way, shape or form.

Projected Employment
Although job opportunities will vary by work place and location; overall, RNs should expect an excellent employment environment.

For the decade ending in 2016 it's been estimated than nearly 600,000 new registered nursing jobs will be created which will make this profession among the largest creator of jobs among all occupations. In addition, due to attrition of current RNs, hundreds of thousands of additional job openings should result.

As mention previously, employment of RNs is expected to grow much faster than nearly all other occupations. Growth will be driven primarily by 2 factors; technological advances in patient care and an aging population.

However, growth by health care sector will vary a bit. Employment in hospitals', currently the largest employer of RNs is expected to grow more slowly that are areas. Although the number of nurses per patient is likely to increase, due to the depth of care, the number of inpatients (those that stay more than 24 hours in the hospital) is likely to be flat because patients are being discharged more quickly due to more procedures being performed on an outpatient basis.

On the other hand, rapid growth is expected in hospital outpatient facilities, for those providing procedures like same-day surgery, rehabilitation and chemotherapy. In addition, because more sophisticated procedures, which previously were only in performed hospitals, are now being done in physicians' offices and in outpatient care centers employment is expected to grow very fast in these places as health care in general expands.

Job opportunities in nursing care facilities are also expected to grow, because of our aging population; many of whom require long-term care. However, this growth will be somewhat slower than in other health care industries because of the desire of patients to be treated at home or in a residential care facility.

Due to the increased financial pressure on hospitals, more and more patients will be discharged as soon as possible, which should produce more admissions to nursing and residential care facilities and to home health care. Job growth also is expected in units that provide specialized long-term rehabilitation for stroke and head injury patients, as well as units that treat Alzheimer's victims.

Job opportunities should be plentiful in employment services industry because hospitals, physician's offices, and other health care facilities rely more on temporary workers to fill short-term staffing needs. In addition, as the demand for nursing grows, temporary nurses will be needed even more which will further contribute to industry employment growth.

Earnings
In 2006 median yearly earnings of registered nurses was $57,000 while the middle 50 percent were earning between $48,000 and $70,000, the lowest 10 percent were earning less than $40,000 and the highest 10 percent were earning over $83,000. Median yearly earnings in areas employing the highest number of registered nurses are listed below: