Dienstag, 14. Januar 2014

Online Nursing Degree Programs - The Way to Go in Today's Economy

The demand for nurses with advanced degrees is rapidly increasing. The nation is currently in year ten of a projected and unprecedented thirty year nursing shortage, at the same time that the need for more highly educated nurses is rising. This puts the nurse with an advanced degree in a very advantageous position. An affordable online RN to BSN or MSN program can help the nurse place her or himself in this position.



A family nurse practitioner (FNP) is a nurse practitioner who specializes in general family medicine, and FNPs are often the sole health care provider in many small towns and rural areas in the United States. Through routine screenings and checkups, if the FNP finds something in a patient that requires a specialist, he or she can easily refer the patient to an MD. But run-of-the-mill health problems, as well as health education and preventative health, can be handled by the nurse practitioner in his or her office.



Most traditional campus based nursing degree programs have insufficient faculty to meet the need for increased nurses in the future. Most nursing faculty are generally older than the general nursing workforce, at an average age of 51. In many schools a large portion of the instructors or professors are eligible for retirement.



One instructor on an online nursing degree program can accommodate more students, and open up slots for nurses to complete their education.



Almost all nurse practitioner programs require that their candidates have spent time working as an RN first, usually at least for one to two years. Most MSN programs also generally prefer nurses who completed a bachelor's degree in nursing, rather than an associate's degree.Becoming a nurse practitioner can be quite costly: $20 - $27,000 for a bachelor's degree and an additional $15 - $20,000 for a master's degree is about average.Job Prospects for FNPs -However, all this education does eventually provide a significant return on investment; family nurse practitioners are some of the best-paid nurses in the field. An average FNP earns $70 - $80,000 per year, and some FNPs earn six figure incomes. By comparison, a highly skilled RN earns around $65,000 per year.



As with most other fields of nursing, family nurse practitioners are in high demand. At least for the time being, the job prospects for FNPs are very good.


Keine Kommentare:

Kommentar veröffentlichen