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Posts Tagged ‘Occupational Health’

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RNs make up the largest portion of jobs in healthcare. About sixty percent of the over two and a half million jobs are in a hospital setting. Others work in skilled nursing facilities usually with a role of manager or supervisor, in home health care, or doctors’ offices. There are other job opportunities for Registered Nurses such as occupational health, addition recovery services, hospice care, and holistic medicine.

Specialization

Working in a hospital gives a RN the chance to specialize in a particular field of medicine just as a doctor would. These opportunities include, but are not limited to:

Emergency or trauma, transplant
Rehabilitation, radiology
Psychiatric-mental health
Perianesthesia
Critical care
Ambulatory care

Focusing in the care of a specific disease, genetic disorder, or illness is an option for an RN:

HIV/AIDS and cancer
Disabled populations, such as physical, mental, or emotional
Wound nurses treat patients with openings due to traumatic injury, bedsores, diabetes, amputations, etc.

RNs also specialize in specific physiological areas and the diseases and illnesses associated with them.:

Urology
Cardiovascular
Dermatology
Gastroenterology
Gynecology
Nephrology
Neuroscience
Ophthalmic
Orthopedic
Otorhinolaryngology
Respiratory

Another form of specialization a nurse might find interesting is by age population:

Neonatology – newborns
Pediatrics – children and adolescents.
Gerontology and geriatrics – adults and the elderly.

According to the Occupational Outlook guide, the nursing profession is among the fastest growing of all career paths. Within nursing, the single specialty expected to grow by leaps and bounds is gerontology. The aging of the baby boomers has increased the average age of the typical patient. According to one survey, patients over 65 make up 60 percent of adult primary visits, 48 percent of inpatient hospital admissions and 85 percent of nursing home residents. By the year 2020 – less than 15 years from now – a study from Occupational Health and Safety Administration predicts that the need for registered nurses in nursing homes will increase 66%, for licensed practical and vocational nurses by 72% and the need for certified nursing assistants will increase by 69%. For nurses working in home health settings – which include ‘managed care’ nursing home settings – those numbers are even higher – well above 250% increase in nurses needed at every level of licensing.

In other words, if you’re planning a career in nursing or are already a nurse, there are thousands of jobs available for you in nursing homes and chronic care facilities. The face of geriatric nursing has also changed considerably over the past decades. If your image of a nursing home is one of bleak halls and hopeless, helpless patients, then a visit to many of today’s nursing homes will offer an unexpected and pleasant surprise.