Nurses are one of the least happy careers in the United States. At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, nurses rate their career happiness 2.7 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 13% of careers.
But Nurse.org found that nurse educators, home health nurses, nurse managers, OR-perioperative nurses, and pediatric nurses reported the highest levels of job satisfaction.
Nursing is a stressful career. A recent survey found that 90% of nurses are considering leaving the profession. Because of burnout and stress, 44% of nurses report looking for new, less-stressful nursing roles, according to a 2021 Incredible Health survey of 2,500 nurses.
Nursing is a great career because it offers numerous benefits. The top 6 reasons to pursue nursing include good compensation, exciting and rewarding work, flexible scheduling, varied career options, and upward career mobility. These factors make it easy to answer, is nursing a good career? with an exuberant yes.
The Monash Business School has launched a new study on the wellbeing of nurses and midwives. They found that almost a third of Australia's nurses are thinking of leaving the profession because they're overworked, undervalued and in danger of burning out.
It sure is. Right now Australian nurses enjoy excellent job prospects, generous salary packages, and a wide range of job roles and specialist career paths. In today's blog we're unpacking our top 4 reasons to consider a career where you help people recover from injury and illness.
In Australia Registered Nurses (RN) earn an average salary of $73,000 per year. This number can vary greatly depending on a nurse's experience, location, qualifications, and seniority.
Stress and Pressure
There's a lot of stress and pressure that comes with being a nurse. While nurses don't get much downtime on the job, they're still required to think critically in life or death situations as well as maintain their composure when working with difficult patients and their families.
So, ask yourself how caring are you of other individuals and their needs. In order to be a good nurse, you have to deeply care about people. If you are one of those types of people who just worry about themselves and do not really concentrate on how to help others, then nursing really is not for you.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects 9% job growth for registered nurses (RNs) and 45% job growth for nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and nurse anesthetists between 2020 and 2030. Both percentages are significantly higher than the 8% average growth projected for all professions for the same period.
Staffing shortages were the top reason nurses cited for planning to leave their jobs, followed by needing better work-life balance, the survey out Tuesday said. Nurses also said they planned to leave their roles because their mental health is at risk and they feel a lack of appreciation.
But, one study found that a staggering 17% - 30% of new nurses leave their job within the first year and up to 56% leaving within the second year.
More than 90% of nurses are satisfied with their careers and believe they make a difference in the lives of others.
Nurses can have an especially difficult time balancing work and personal life because of the increased amount of physical and emotional stress that nurses experience. Taking time to decompress after a shift and remembering to prioritize their own needs are necessary to developing a healthy work-life balance.
You need to remember more than anyone else — the doctors you work with will count on you to have answers about all your patients, including every disease process, every medication and time it needs to be administered, lab results, vital signs, urine output, lab schedule, and all new orders for the day.
"The most rewarding thing about being a nurse is making a difference in the lives of others. It may be your patients, their families, or your students. Nursing offers us so many arenas to practice in.
Willingness to Learn
Nurses spend more bedside time with patients than any other role in healthcare and their willingness to learn and put new knowledge into practice is one of the leading traits of a good nurse. Improvements in education approaches (e.g., multidisciplinary training, personalized learning, etc.)
Nurses are highly-respected, highly-valued professionals that get to help people day-in and day-out. There is strong job satisfaction, salary potential, work-life balance, and career opportunities for nurses today. For these reasons, nurses consistently rank among the best healthcare jobs in the nation.
From a professional perspective, the high rates of abuse sustained by the nursing profession have a lasting impact and many members of the Australian College of Nursing report symptoms of trauma, post-traumatic stress syndrome and vicarious trauma.
The average practice nurse salary in Australia is $84,000 per year or $43.08 per hour. Entry-level positions start at $76,006 per year, while most experienced workers make up to $124,548 per year.