Types Of Degrees In Nursing
If you want to become a lawyer (whether that is a divorce lawyer, a criminal lawyer, a bankruptcy lawyer), you simply have to finish law school, and once you do you shall focus more on the field you are interested in. This is not the case, however, with nursing. If you won’t to become a nurse, you need to choose your career path from the beginning and choose wisely one of the several types of degrees in nursing.
The various types of degrees in nursing are: a diploma in nursing, an associate degree, degrees that grant you the professional rights of a simple licensed practical nurse, or of an advanced registered one, bachelor degrees, master’s of science or even doctorate degrees in nursing. The easiest of all types of degrees in nursing that you can obtain is probably the license of a practical nurse, or LNP in short form. It involves around 4 to 5 trimesters of post high school education, where you learn the basic skills you need to have in order to be able to provide nursing care. Keep in mind, though, that the LNP does not make you a registered nurse. The types of degrees in nursing that allow you to be a registered nurse are a) an associate’s degree in nursing, b) a diploma in nursing, or even better c) a bachelor’s degree in nursing. The associate’s degree usually requires that you attend a two-year program, which basically meets the minimum requirements, if you are to become a registered nurse. The diploma in nursing is even better than the associate’s, and it involves both an in-class educational component and clinical practice. The strongest card that you may hold as a simple nurse in terms of your educational background, however, is that of a bachelor’s degree, which is what most employers expect from a qualified nurse.
Nevertheless, the bachelor’s degree does not have to be the end of the road in a nurse’s career, since there are more advanced types of degrees in nursing, which specialize in different aspects of nursing. For typical examples of nursing specialties are: nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives, clinical nurse specialists, and certified registered nurse anesthetists. Being an anesthetist, for instance, is very common in the US, and it should not come as a surprise that more than half of the anesthetics every year are administered by certified registered nurse anesthetists. The same goes also for certified nurse-midwives that partake in most of childbirths every year who are knowledgeable and skilled enough to even deliver babies themselves (whether that is in a hospital or a home).