Your Nursing Career: A Look at the Facts

Nursing is the nation’s largest health care profession with more than 3.1 million registered nurses practicing nationwide. Despite its large size, many more nurses are needed into the foreseeable future to meet the growing demand for nursing care. As you plan or consider a career as a registered nurse, you should know these facts:

• The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment for registered nurses will grow faster than most other occupations through 2018.
• Nursing students comprise more than half of all health professions students.
• Nurses comprise the largest single component of hospital staff, are the primary providers of hospital patient care, and deliver most of the nation’s long-term care.
• Most health care services involve some form of care by nurses. Although 62.2 percent of all employed RNs work in hospitals, many are employed in a wide range of other settings, including private practices, public health agencies, primary care clinics, home health care, outpatient surgicenters, health maintenance organizations, nursing school-operated nursing centers, insurance and managed care companies, nursing homes, schools, mental health agencies, hospices, the military, and industry. Other nurses work in careers as college and university educators preparing future nurses or as scientists developing advances in many areas of health care and health promotion.
• Though often working collaboratively, nurses do not simply “assist” physicians and other health care providers. Instead, they practice independently within their own defined scope of practice. Nursing roles range from direct patient care to case management, establishing nursing practice standards, developing quality assurance procedures, and directing complex nursing care systems.
• With more than four times as many RNs in the United States as physicians, nursing delivers an extended array of health care services, including primary and preventive care by advanced, independent nurse practitioners in such clinical areas as pediatrics, family health, women’s health, and gerontological care. Nursing’s scope also includes care by clinical nurse specialists, certified nurse-midwives and nurse anesthetists, as well as care in cardiac, oncology, neonatal, neurological, and obstetric/gynecological nursing and other advanced clinical specialties.
• The primary pathway to professional nursing, as compared to technical-level practice, is the four-year Bachelor of Science degree in nursing (BSN). Registered nurses are prepared either through a four-year baccalaureate program; a three-year associate degree in nursing program; or a three-year hospital diploma program. Graduates of all three programs take the same state licensing exam, the NCLEX-RN. (The number of diploma programs has declined steadily — to less than 10 percent of all basic RN education programs — as nursing education has shifted from hospital-operated instruction into the college and university system.)

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