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Nursing
 
According to television, nurses are either saving the latest victim of a drive-by shooting-with gut-wrenching drama-or constantly seeking a work-related romance with the handsome new ER surgeon. But while it's never a good idea to argue with television, there's a lot more to the nursing profession than fits into a tidy one-hour plot.

For starters, not all nurses are employed in large, urban emergency rooms. Rather, nurses work all over the country: in small-town hospitals, private clinics, public schools and universities, government public-health agencies, and, yes, big-city hospitals.

What You'll Do
Wherever they are situated, nurses work within the health care industry and promote the health of their patients. Nurses provide direct patient care in hospitals (which account for two out of three nursing jobs), take care of hospitals' daily regimen of recording patients' vital signs (such as blood pressure), and ensure that medications (including intravenous fluids and other treatments) are administered properly.

Nurses also observe and examine patients, sometimes recommending that a physician investigate a particular problem. And although a large part of a nurse's job is to follow physicians' orders, nurses also have duties separate from those of a doctor.

Unlike doctors, who generally work to cure a specific ailment, nurses concern themselves with a patient's entire well-being. They spend time consulting patients about their diet, hygiene, and the best way to administer patients' medications. Nurses working outside of hospitals don't necessarily deal with the same problems, but they still advise patients, families, and communities on a variety of health care issues.

Who Does Well
Nurses need to be compassionate. They also need to understand complex scientific principles relating to biology and physiology, and work with increasingly complicated medical equipment.

Types of Nursing
Education generally determines a nurse's salary, position, and job location. Depending on a particular nurse's education and credentials, he or she might find work as a nurses' aide, a licensed practical nurse (LPN), a registered nurse (RN), or an advanced practice nurse such as a nurse practitioner (NP) or a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA).

On a continuum, nurses' aides, who have the least training, get paid the least and have less responsibility than advanced practice nurses, who must complete several years of postgraduate education and pass national certification exams.

Whatever a nurse's job title, all nurses are blessed with being able to work wherever they might live. In fact, nursing is one of the most flexible careers, providing opportunities ranging from part-time work for someone going back to school or raising a family, to full-time salaried positions with great degrees of responsibility, and workloads to match. Simply put, until people

 
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