When you picture a nurse in your head, there is a good chance that you imagine a registered nurse. There are almost 4 million registered nurses in the country today. They work at hospitals, doctors’ offices, and other medical facilities.

But registered nurses are just one of the many types of nurses. So if you’re interested in becoming a nurse, you should expand your horizons and learn about some of the other potential nursing careers that are out there. It’ll help you find the nursing jobs that appeal to you the most.

Discover more about several other types of nurses below.

Critical Care Nurse

If you work well under pressure and like the idea of facing and overcoming challenges on a daily basis, you might want to become a critical care nurse. As a critical care nurse, you’ll do a lot of the same things that registered nurses do. But you’ll do them in emergency situations.

If someone comes into a hospital or doctor’s office with a severe injury, you’re going to be one of the first people to see them. It’s important for you to be someone who can keep your cool when you’re under pressure and make smart decisions if you want to succeed as a critical care nurse.

Nurse Practitioner

Becoming a nurse practitioner is just about as close as you can get to being a doctor without actually becoming one. Nurse practitioners are capable of doing everything that registered nurses can. But they’re also able to do things like:

  • Carry out physical examinations
  • Order medical tests
  • Prescribe medications

They’re also some of the best-paid types of nurses. It would be worth exploring becoming a nurse practitioner if you’re OK with getting advanced degrees while also working as a registered nurse.

Nurse Manager

There are quite a few types of nurses working in the average medical institution. It’s important for there to be a point person that communicates with them early and often about their responsibilities.

This is the role that a nurse manager plays. They’re in charge of doing things like coming up with schedules for nurses and handling budgetary issues.

They can also speak with nurses about why they should buy long term disability insurance and give them other career advice. Nurse managers have some of the most important jobs in any medical setting.

There Are All Kinds of Different Types of Nurses That You Can Become

Before becoming a nurse, you should give some serious thought to which type of nurse you want to be. These are just a few of the different types of nurses that work in the medical field today and they have different nursing salaries.

Think about which type of nurse that you would like to be prior to enrolling in nursing school. It’ll put you on the right career path and ensure that you know the answer to the question, “What does a nurse do?”, as it pertains to different types of nurses.

Find more useful career-related advice by browsing through the rest of our informative blog articles.