Nursing is not only a highly in-demand field with many opportunities, but a nursing degree is also one that can tell potential employees that you hold many skills and qualities which can be applied to a variety of professional positions. Choosing a nursing degree is the first step to a career where you can make a significant difference in the lives of others, and no matter which path you choose to pursue with your degree, the effect can be a positive one with dedication and hard work.
If you’ve just gained a nursing degree, are considering pursuing a nursing degree, or even wondering whether to take the next step with online MSN programs, here are some top career options for you.
Job Roles Directly Related to Nursing and Your Degree
Adult Nurse
An adult nurse’s role entails caring for patients in need of medical or health attention. This could be anything ranging from physical injuries and problems to healthcare for short-term or long-term illnesses. Nurses may also be responsible for patient care during times of life-changing diseases.
As an adult nurse, your focus would be supporting your patient’s recovery through a dedicated care plan and putting your patient’s needs at the forefront at all times. You may also be required to conduct assessments and procedures relevant to your patient’s care plan.
Adult nurses are synonymous with general emotional care, too, meaning concentrating on the wellbeing of your patient as a whole, as well as simply treating any illness itself.
As an adult nurse, you may work as part of a team or directly with a designated patient, and this may also include liaising with your patient’s loved ones. Adult nurses looking to progress their career to a master’s level can also pursue online MSN programs.
A general summary of responsibilities includes:
- Taking charge of patient care plans
- Supporting patients
- Prepare patients for certain healthcare treatments
- Monitoring their state through checks such as blood pressure and temperature
- Administering medication and injections
- Monitoring your patient’s condition
- Being ready in an emergency
- Maintaining patient records
- Communicating effectively with patients and their loved ones regarding treatment
- Educating other team members regarding correct practices. More focus on this responsibility may be placed if you seek a higher role, such as with online MSN programs
Child Nurse
As a child nurse, you will have the same responsibilities and job description as an adult nurse, but your focus will be on working with children of all ages. Your role will include supporting children who are suffering from injuries or illnesses, as well as liaising with adult family members.
As a child nurse, you may also need to use more initiative to understand young patients who cannot communicate their symptoms very well. It’s important to promote a positive relationship between healthcare attendants and younger children who may not understand what is going on. Further study, such as with online MSN programs, may help you to develop your communication and nursing skills to better apply to being a child nurse if needed.
In this role, your working environment can vary to match the age group of children you’re working with, so you may work in a traditional healthcare setting such as a hospital or clinic, or you may be required to work in the community, a school or nursery, or any child-centered activity.
A general summary of responsibilities includes:
- Preparing your young patients for treatments, operations, or procedures
- Administering medication or injections
- Helping with tests and observations
- Maintaining the condition of your patient
- Responding efficiently to emergency situations
- Keeping accurate patient records
- Keeping adult family members, such as parents, informed regarding the patient’s situation
Learning Disability Nurse
Perhaps you’d like to focus on making a difference in the lives of patients who are also living with a learning disability. This role calls for the usual healthcare skills and expectations, as well as working with compassion and understanding for those with learning disabilities. You may want to further your skillset and understanding with further study, too, such as online MSN programs.
This role will see you working with both adults and children to deliver healthcare treatment and advice and ensure your patients can live their life to the full. Supporting your patients to understand their own health and take control of more independence is also key.
This role may therefore combine the role of nurse and teacher, as it will be your responsibility to help educate patients on a healthy lifestyle and how they can fulfill day-to-day tasks. This could be anything from basic healthy living to social tasks. Your focus is, therefore, on both the physical and mental health of your patients.
Those patients with learning disabilities may also need relevant care plans administered, and you may be required to liaise with other healthcare professionals who have a role in the lives of your patients with learning disabilities, such as social workers.
Due to the nature of your patients, you may be required to work in other settings outside of a hospital, like a supported living setting.
A general summary of responsibilities includes:
- Working with vulnerable people, taking their learning disability into account
- Concentrating on building trusting and compassionate relationships with vulnerable patients
- Implementing care plans and reviews relevant to the patient’s needs (liaising with other relevant healthcare professionals in your patient’s life for this)
- Completing relevant paperwork
- Being responsible for assisting patients with general needs, such as hygiene routines, social calls, and maintaining employment or finding a job
- Supporting patients with any social activities
- Helping with healthcare tests and observations
- Administering medication as needed
- Being aware of community services
Job Roles Available for Nursing at a Master’s Level
Suppose you already have a foundation nursing degree and are looking to gain your master’s. In that case, you may naturally be wondering about the career options available out there with further studies, like using online MSN programs. Here are some of the top roles available for those with a master’s degree in nursing who have studied online MSN programs or attended a traditional institution.
Family Nurse Practitioner
This can be an extremely rewarding career option for those wanting to dedicate their career and further study to a nurse practitioner path. The role of a family nurse practitioner is a vital one for ongoing care and support throughout a patient’s lifetime. Primary care will be at the forefront of everything you do in this role, putting any online MSN programs to good use using your further study.
In this role, you will be responsible for the patient care of individual families on a dedicated level. You will be responsible for diagnosing and treating a variety of health conditions, as well as supporting any patients with long-term illnesses throughout their lifetime.
Your role will also include using lab results for necessary diagnosis or treatment, managing and prescribing medication, arranging treatment plans, and educating your patients on healthcare and wellness.
Clinical Nurse Researcher
Further study with a master’s, such as with online MSN programs, may see you want to become a clinical nurse researcher. This role is a vital one within the pharmaceutical industry and also for medical research as a whole.
In this role, you will be using your advanced study from online MSN programs or traditional learning paths to apply to clinical research, writing proposals, and exploring relevant data. As a clinical nurse researcher, you can expect to be working with a lot of information. This is, therefore, a great role for those with a nursing degree who would like to use further study to switch to a more clinical and data-centered healthcare role compared to face-to-face patient treatment.
Due to the nature of this role, strong academic skills will be a plus, and confidence with communication skills will be a must. Statistics, data, and working with evidence are all key aspects of this job role, and it would be suitable for those who are very organized.
As a clinical nurse researcher, you can concentrate on benefitting the lives of others through solid research and how your findings can improve the world of medicine.
You may want to aim for this role from the get-go and aim to achieve online MSN programs to fulfill your career dream, or it can also be a great career switch if you’ve worked as a general nurse but would like to move away from frontline patient care.
Nurse Educator
Perhaps your further education and study have seen you wanting to offer the same for young student nurses. As a nurse educator, your role is a fundamental one in educating the next generation. This can be a great role for those who want to combine nursing skills with teaching abilities and can be a great academic pursuit. This role can be a highly fulfilling one in knowing that you are making a positive difference in the lives of those student nurses who want to progress and knowing that you’re working at the forefront of shaping those people who will eventually provide important patient care.
This role will involve supervising nurses, creating lesson plans, offering your role as a mentor, and also working with patients alongside your educational duties. Due to the nature of this role, you could find yourself working in either healthcare settings or learning institutions, like universities.
What if I have a Nursing Degree, but No Longer Want to Work as a Nurse?
It’s always possible that your career aspirations can change, even if you’ve already earned your nursing degree and originally planned to focus on a nursing role long-term. If you have earned your nursing degree but no longer want to work directly in a nursing capacity, there are still some rewarding career options out there to put your well-earned skills to good use.
Because the skills used for nursing are so vast, they can be applied to a variety of roles and circumstances.
Other careers you may want to therefore explore with a nursing degree are listed here.
Health Writer
This role allows you to put your pre-existing medical knowledge to good use in a different capacity. As a health writer, you will be responsible for creating articles and publications relating to the health and medical world. This could be directly for publication industries, or you may be required to create written content for patients. This role has a key focus on educating others regarding good health and specific medical topics.
Using your nursing degree, you can use your informed knowledge to provide others with key information relating to health.
Nutritionist
Nutrition is a key part of a healthy lifestyle, after all. That means that in this role, using your nursing foundation degree, you can educate patients on good health through nutrition. You could work on a consultant basis to help your patients reach their health goals, such as an independent nutritionist, or you could work within a healthcare setting as a consultant. If you have a passion for healthy eating and nutrition specifically, you can turn your nursing degree towards this relevant discipline.
Medical Researcher
Turning away from a traditional nursing role may not mean that you’re ready to cease learning about the medical field. Instead, you may be interested in learning more about medicine and how it relates to patient care in a research-focused role rather than working as a nurse.
As a medical researcher, you will use your existing knowledge regarding medicine to better understand the human body. Research will always be fundamental in healthcare and specifically in medicine, so this is an important role that could be extremely rewarding within a relevant industry.
This role may also include studying, testing, and an overall aim to improve the medical field.
Are You Ready to Explore Your Career Options with a Nursing Degree?
A nursing career is a varied one, with so many avenues to explore. You can stick to one general role, chase one specialization or even make a career switch into another suitable role; what’s important is that nursing skills will always be needed.
This content is a joint venture between our publication and our partner. We do not endorse any product or service in the article.
