Benefits of Being a Nurse: Narrative Essay

In this world that we leave in there are around seven point seven billion people that are currently living in our world. With that many people, there is a variety of problems that are sure to ensue like poverty, lack of education for young children, environmental issues, and medical problems. Medical problems can be the most daunting because they can be fatally, expensive, and can be very difficult for the normal person to complete. Medical professions are the answer to these medical problems. Nursing is a very challenging career that allows one the opportunity to promote and maintain the health and well-being of a community filled with people. Although most people may argue that being a nurse practitioner is the same thing as being a doctor but being a nurse practitioner has a few differences. A doctor studies diseases and how to cure them while a nurse and nurse practitioner study people and how to heal them. Most nurse practitioners have a certain personality to be able to flourish in this career.

The nurse practitioner career really wasn’t established until the late 1960s, so not until the late 1960s there really couldn’t be a nurse practitioner found in a hospital. In 1965, Loretta Ford who was a nurse at the time, and Henry Silver who was a physician trainer worked together to create the first training program for nurse practitioners around the world. The program focused on health promotions, different diseases that have been found in people across the United States, and health for younger children and their families. However, back in the day, the Omnibus Reconciliation Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton back in 1993. Word finally started to get around that there was a strong need for nurse practitioners to help people and the program was free at the time and by 1979 there were around fifteen thousand nurses across the country. In 1965, the Medicare and Medicaid programs were first established, and they provided healthcare coverage to low-come women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, physicians began mentoring and collaborating with nurses who had clinical experiences for the first time. Back in 2003, the Government started to enable nurses and pharmacists to start working together to help people to the best of their abilities. (Kaiser).

A normal day for a nurse practitioner can vary from day to day or even from patient to patient. Nurse practitioners' normal day routines might include taking blood, delivering meals, and taking records of patients. (Scala). Nurse practitioners are some of the most highly trained nursing professionals because if they wanted to go any higher, they would have to go back to medical school. In order for nurse practitioners to participate in their daily activities they need to provide care for their patients, monitor and evaluate medical equipment that will be used, and even take records of their patients. A nurse practitioner's work schedule is difficult to define emergency rooms and hospital rooms are open 24/7, so there needs to be a nurse at the hospital at all times. Nurse practitioners can choose to either take the night shifts, or day shifts, and their shifts can range anywhere between six, twelve, or even sixteen-hour shifts. Sometimes those nurse practitioners that are working in the emergency rooms will be on call for 24 hours. The hours a nurse practitioner can put in per week also vary they can work either on call or anywhere up to forty hours per week and can also choose to work overtime. (Registered Nursing).

Education is a very important factor that will have to be played in this career. The first step into a career of a nurse practitioner is to graduate from high school which will take four years, either getting an associate's or bachelor’s degree in nursing which will also take around four years, and become a registered nurse to gain experience for a nurse which will take anywhere between one to two years, you will also need to graduate for nursing school which can vary from year to year and time to time but the average time to graduate from nursing school is two to four years, and get certified by a nursing board which time can vary in. (Np schools) To get the minimum qualifications to be a nurse practitioner you have to have at least graduated from high school and would have gone to school for four years to complete the nursing program. The cost for a nurse practitioner to go to college paying out-of-state tuition, a nurse practitioner student can expect to pay anywhere around $31,500 for their education. Online programs can cost anywhere around $400 to $800 per credit and average about $22,500 for a nurse practitioner degree. Private universities can cost anywhere from $500 to $1,500 per credit. (Midlevel U).

Nurse practitioner salary and benefits are some of the best things that come with being a nurse. Nursing as a career has many good benefits and salary wages not only first starting out in the career, but the more you work the better the salary is. According to the AANP, the nurse practitioner's yearly salary tends to rise along with experience levels. The starting salary for a nurse practitioner is 37,100 dollars. The median annual nurse practitioner salary paid annually is 108,244 dollars as of December 26, 2019. Nurse practitioners who are just starting out with as little as zero to five years of experience are expected to earn a total income of 101, 946 dollars just between a zero to five-year working period. Nurse practitioners would have been working in the career for six to ten years of their lives are expected to earn 111, 616 dollars. The salary levels not only for being a nurse practitioner but for any job will rise the more and more experience you get with the job. Most nurse practitioners seem to retire after working sixteen to twenty years of their life, and just from working those twenty years of their life, they are expected to earn 121,427 dollars for their hard work and dedication for twenty years. (All Nursing Schools).

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After all, on top of having such a good salary rate, there also are benefits that come with being a nurse practitioner. The majority of nurse practitioners get paid vacations, health insurance, paid sick days, life insurance, professional liability insurance, a retirement plan, and reimbursement for licensure and certifications. (All Nursing Schools). Not only do nurse practitioners get paid good they also get good benefits that are good for their whole career as they work, and after their career is over and they decide to retire. Most nurse practitioners seem to have retired at the age of fifty years old, and after taking all their time to get certified to be a nurse practitioner they seem to have worked for around eight years to get certified to be a nurse practitioner the average nurse practitioner will have worked for forty-two years in total. (Hodges). The highest-paid nurse practitioner state is Hawaii with a record-breaking 115, 870 dollars, and the lowest-paying state is Minnesota is only 102, 640 dollars annually. Most nurses can be found in New York with around 10,310 employed nurses. (Np schools).

There are many different skills that each person has not one person might have the same skills as everyone, everyone is unique in their own way. Skills that might be helpful to most nurse practitioners are a kind a willing heart, kind, smart, sweet, helpful, compassionate, a desire to help and make a difference in someone's lives, a problem-solving brain, and self-confidence in yourself that you can do it and you are doing the right thing (Mayo Clinic). Characteristics for nurse practitioners can be anything from what they look like, how they act, their education, their ability to help others, or even their work ethic. A nurse practitioner's characteristics could be that they are willing to help people and make the best out of their lives while they are still on god's green earth, their education is up to date, they can deal with stress, can diagnose someone without having second guesses, and they can prescribe treatment to a patient knowing it is the right treatment to help them get better. (Duquesne University).

There are many challenges that come with every career, but some challenges that come with being a nurse practitioner are their work schedules they can either pick to work nights or day shifts, but they don’t know how long they will be working, how hard it will be, how many patients they might see in an hour. (Tolbert). Another challenge might be treating someone for medication it might be hard to find and figure out what medication or treatment might help a patient out, and some nurses might be freed upon the idea that they might have not given their patient the right medication and what happens if they don’t get better what happens if they die. Another challenge might be getting up and going to work, some might not like the idea of having a long shift, or even working the day or night shifts.

There are many disadvantages and advantages that come with every job no matter what the career is. The advantages of being a nurse practitioner are helping other get better, seeing and meeting new or previous patients, choosing where to put a job application, and choosing which state you want to work in, the need for more nurses and nurse practitioner are rising, there are good benefits and salary that come with being a nurse practitioner and making a difference in people's lives for the better every day. (Spring Arbor Univeristy). There can also be disadvantages of being a nurse practitioner you might have long shifts or even the night shifts, you might have to work overtime, education takes a lot of time and money, and emotional and physical stress can be hard on nurses. (Burger). Disadvantages of being a nurse practitioner also include difficult patients and co-workers to work with and responsibilities that can be put onto you to make someone's life better. (Regoli) Disadvantages also are working in a hospital all day long, maybe even the drive to work every day, and you are exposed to many or different viruses and germs a day so you could possibly also get sick. (Malone)

The job outlook seems to be in higher demand for many jobs because there are many people living in our world today. Most people are not willing to work or try to help people out by working. The demand for nurse practitioners between 2018 and 2028 is going to have grown by 26 percent, and that is much faster than any other occupation. There seem to be more and more people getting sick in our world and more germs and viruses are being found every day, and if they are no nurses or doctors to help find treatments for the virus then many people are going to be dying. National data shows that available nurse practitioner positions are expected to rise to 211,600 by 2026, with an estimated 14,000 nurse practitioner job openings that will be becoming available each year. (Hollier and Doucet).