Salary of a Nurse

Nurses are one of the most important professionals in the health care industry. Due to the increasing number of hospitals, clinics and health care centers, the demand for qualified nurses is rising at a rapid pace. Nurses provide basic to advanced services to the patients which helps in fast and successful recovery. Before we discuss the average salary of a nurse, let us first acquaint ourselves with the nurse duties and nurse practitioner job description.

Nurse Job Description

Nurses work mainly in hospitals and assist the doctors by conducting medical examinations on patients. They also gather blood samples of the patients for laboratory investigations and research. The nurses provide emotional support to patients and guide them well which play a vital role in fast recovery. Nurses also take body temperature and perform various tests on the patients under the guidance of the doctors and give the prescribed medicines. The duties of nurses vary largely as per their specializations. Pediatric care, neonatal care, intensive care units, anesthetists are the areas of specialization for professional nurses. The job of a nurse involves long as well as irregular working hours and hence they need to be physically as well as mentally fit for their challenging job.

Nursing jobs can be grabbed by only those who have the requisite educational qualifications and skills. Generally, high-end hospitals and health care centers prefer to recruit people having a bachelors of nursing degree from reputed nursing schools. A master's degree in nursing can fetch you even better nurse salary and fast promotions. A diploma course in nursing which is being offered by many educational institutions has also helped many nurses get their dream jobs. In the next paragraph, there are details about the salary of a nurse.

Salaries for Nurses

The salary of a nurse largely depends on the educational qualifications, number of years of practical experience, skills, abilities and past work history. The place of jobs also plays an important role in deciding the salaries for nurses. The salary of a nurse is much higher in urban and metropolitan areas than in the rural areas. The nurse salaries also depend on their employer and post in place of work. Nurses working for large hospital chains will naturally earn more than those working for small hospitals. Nurses who have an experience of less than two years can expect salaries in the range of USD 20,000 to US 35,000 per year. As per the information provided by experts, the average salary of registered nurses is around USD 62,000 per year. The nurses working in places such as California, New York and Washington earn the greatest money with salaries ranging between USD 75,000 to USD 100,000 per year. The data on average salary for nurses is available on some select sites on the Internet.

The pediatric nurse practitioner salary can be in the range of USD 65,000 to USD 82,000 per year. Psychiatric nurse practitioners too are considered to be among the highest paid nurses and this is justified from the psychiatric nurse practitioner salary which ranges between USD 70,000 to USD 90,000 per year. The neonatal nurse practitioner salary is believed to be between USD 60,000 to USD 90,000 depending on their experience. The family nurse practitioners can also expect to earn anything between USD 65,000 to US 85,000 per year. At many places, the nurse practitioner salary also includes attractive bonuses, perks and incentives to the deserving nurses for excellent performance.

Hopefully, this information on salary of a nurse will help you know more about this exciting career of nursing in detail. So, try your best to enter this field and achieve desired success. All the best!