How to Become a Nurse

Series Summary

There are a variety of careers in the medical profession provide an important service in helping people. Whether as a doctor, nurse, surgeon or pharmacist, there a myriad of ways exist to care for sick people and help cure illnesses and disease. Medical jobs provide not only the joy of making patients feel better but are often well-paying, easy-to-find careers. The downside of a medical career includes the years and the thousands of dollars of education and training required; but most doctors and nurses agree the cost is worth the reward. In this free video series on medical jobs, a medical administrator explains how to get a variety of jobs in the medical profession. Find out how to become a medical doctor, a general practitioner or a cardiac surgeon. Learn about the qualifications needed to become a nurse, a registered nurse, a nurse practitioner, a nurse midwife or a physician assistant. There are many reasons to become a medical professional. With the right knowledge and education, anyone can get one of these satisfying careers.

Video Transcript

"So, how to become a nurse. Well, there are really several things you want to take into consideration first. One, what level of nursing you want to do. There are various levels of nursing. There's the licensed vocational nurse, or an LVN. There's the registered nurse, and then you have advanced practice nursing, which would include nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, and certified nurse midwives. If you are looking at an LVN program to become a licensed vocational nurse, really that's a technical program. They're offered through a number of private schools, and it's typically a year to maybe eighteen months of study, and when you're done, you get your LVN certificate, and you can become a a certified LVN, which would then enable you to work. It's like similar to a nurse, you're nursing license. The next level would be a registered nurse. Now, you don't have to have a bachelor's degree in order to become a registered nurse. You can go to an associate program in nursing, and almost every junior college offers a nursing program. It's a two year course of study. Part of the time is is dedicated to learning the science of health care, and then part of it is learned to, is dedicated to the practical aspects, and after the two year program you can become a registered nurse. And that, that is a state function; it's a licensing function, and that allows you to then work as a nurse. Now, for a lot of people that is perfect if you're interested in a career of nurs, in nursing. If you want to take your nursing career to the next level however, you would want to; at a minimum, have a bachelors in nursing. And for that, you'd have to attend a college or university and major in nursing, and that is a four year course of study. When you complete your BSN as it's called, or bachelors of science and nursing, then you can sit for the same state licensing exam as you, as would any other RN, and then you are certified to work as a nurse, except you also have the bachelors degree behind you. And that can really open doors, particularly if you're interested in nurse management, or if you want to work at a really high, in a really high tech field, such as surgical nursing or some other sub-specialty in in nursing. The highest level of nurse is the nurse practitioner, or advanced practice nurse, which also includes certified nurse anesthetists, and certified nurse midwives. And for that, it also requires a masters degree, in addition to your nursing course of study, so for that program you would do a four year bachelors degree program in nursing, and then go on to your masters work in whatever field you wanted to specialize in, and nurse practitioners work in a wide variety of fields, and essentially function as independent medical practitioners. They have to be supervised by a physician, but they see patients individually, they make diagnoses, they prescribe medicines. They do a lot of the same functionality as would an MD."