How Can an Online Nursing Program Help Your Career?

If you are considering becoming a nurse, there are many courses and qualifications you will need to take throughout your career. This will help you gain valuable knowledge and experiences, allowing you the chance to specialize in a particular area of nursing that you are passionate about. An online nursing masters can help prepare you to undertake further training or pursue work in a certain field of nursing. If you are currently practicing as a nurse and want to further your career, or you are just thinking about becoming one and are looking into education options, here are just a couple of the ways in which online nursing programs can help your career.

Online MSN Programs

The online nursing programs are online BSN-MSN/NP degrees that help give you the knowledge and skills you need to work in more specific areas of nursing. The programs are taught with a mixture of online and in-person teaching and can be completed in 24-30 months, depending on which pathway you take. They are accredited by the CCNE, and will equip you with the clinical expertise to begin practicing as a Nurse Practitioner in your chosen field. The course is designed to be studied around your existing job and shift patterns, making it perfect for RNs who are currently practicing and want a flexible study option.

There are many requirements in order to be eligible for the course, including a BSN and 3.0 GPA. There are many interesting courses, such as Role Development and Leadership, Theoretical Perspectives for Advanced Practice, and a Moral and Ethical Decision-Making Residency. You will also have the option to study one course at a time, with a week's break in between each 7-week course. When becoming a nurse, there are plenty of courses and experiences you will need to undertake in order to prepare you to deliver a high quality of care to all of your patients, and online nursing programs will not only add to your existing nursing skills but allow you to learn and develop new ones in the areas of nursing you choose.

What does it take to become a nurse?

If you are already working as an RN, you will understand the mental and physical demands that the job entails. The online nursing programs can help take your existing skills and strengthen them further, as well as teaching you new techniques and knowledge to help you succeed in your new role. There are certain traits and characteristics that are incredibly important and beneficial in nursing. These include:

• Stamina

Nursing can walk up to 4 miles a day on an average 12-hour shift, so you will have to have a lot of physical stamina in order to work on your feet for long periods of time. You will also be lifting and moving equipment and patients. Furthermore, nursing also requires a lot of emotional stamina, as you will often be working in high-pressure situations and sometimes with distressed patients or family members, and you need to remain healthy, calm, and professional in order to provide a high level of care and support.

• Communication

Nurses are great communicators, whether this is with other medical professionals, patients, family members, or anyone else they interact with. A large part of nursing is educating patients and their families on elements of their health, and therefore you will need to have meaningful interactions and engagements. Furthermore, you may find yourself having to educate or explain more complex information about health and will need to communicate these in a way that the patients and family members will understand. Knowing that offers may not have the same medical knowledge and experience as you, and understanding how to adapt your communication in order to accommodate this, is a very important nursing skill.

• Empathy

When working as a nurse, you will most likely not have the first-hand experience of every situation that you are faced with. This is where empathy comes in. It is the ability to put yourself in the shoes of another person in order to better understand their thoughts and feelings. Nurses use empathy every day, as it helps them build a good relationship with their patients, and provide a more personal service. Empathetic nurses can make patients feel calmer and more comfortable in what can sometimes be upsetting or traumatic situations.

• Advocacy

An advocate is someone who speaks on behalf of those who cannot. In nursing, advocacy means promoting patient equality, preserving human dignity, providing freedom from suffering, and making sure that patients have the right to make decisions in regards to their own health. Patient advocacy is at the heart of the Hippocratic Oath, and nurses should be concerned with keeping patients safe and providing the highest level of care.

• Learning

Methodology and techniques within the medical industry are always changing and evolving, and nurses need to be prepared to adapt to them. No matter the level of your job or how long you have been practicing, it is essential to always be willing to learn new things. This ensures that you are always offering the latest treatment or techniques in order to give patients the highest and most up-to-date levels of care.

How do you become a nurse?

When looking to become a nurse, you will need to undertake various levels of training and licensing in order to even enter the profession. Most people take a BSN and then go on to take their licensing exams in order to become an RN and start practicing. There are always options to develop your skills and learn more, specializing in different areas and advancing your career. This is where online nursing programs can help boost your career and send it in a different direction. The courses prepare you to work in a specific area of nursing. You can also choose to take your education even further by studying a DNP, which will again open further career options.

What are the career outcomes of online nursing programs?

The aim of online nursing programs is to offer a flexible study option that allows you to focus on a certain area of nursing. These roles often require higher levels of training and qualifications than a BSN, so studying online nursing programs gives you the knowledge, skills, and experiences to succeed in these areas. Career outcomes of online nursing programs include:

• Family Nurse Practitioner

Family nurse practitioners work with families and people across all age ranges, genders, diseases, and body systems. FNPs provide and understand the importance of family-centered healthcare. An FNPs responsibilities can include assessments, maintaining and promoting health, educating patients, as well as prescribing medication. As a family nurse practitioner, you could work in a variety of settings and environments, including hospitals, clinics, community centers, and telemedicine. FNPs can also create care plans for their patients, consult other medical professionals and act as the primary care provider. You can work in a huge range of settings and areas, and many FNPs provide healthcare services in areas where waitlists have historically been long, such as rural areas. 

• Pediatric Nurse Practitioner

PNPs focus on patients from birth to young adults, and also recognize the importance of family-centered healthcare. Alongside other responsibilities such as treating illness and injury and performing physical examinations, a large part of the duties of PNPs is in the education of adults and caregivers in regards to the health of their children.

• Adult-Gerontology, Primary Care, Nurse Practitioner

Gerontology is the study of old age and aging, however, AGNPs are concerned with the healthcare of patients from the young adult stage and upwards. There are two types of AGNP, one specializing in acute care and the other in primary care. The online nursing programs prepare you to work in the latter category, with patients who are not usually ill. Here, the focus is on maintaining the patient's health through the promotion and encouragement of healthy lifestyle choices. Responsibilities also include educating patients and caregivers, assessing the competence of caregivers managing the transition between care settings.

• Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner

PMHNPs can work in a huge range of settings, including outpatient clinics and private practices. You can choose to generalize or specialize in certain areas such as forensics, psychotherapy, or geriatrics. PMHNPs provide services in many different settings, including schools, prisons, substance abuse programs, or trauma centers.

How Can Online Study Help You?

As well as teaching you important technical skills and theories to help boost your career, online nursing programs can help you develop important personal skills. Online learning is an affordable and flexible study option that makes higher education more accessible for a larger number of people. While there are many unique challenges that accompany the online element of online nursing programs, overcoming these can help your career by developing skills such as problem-solving, self-motivation, and organization, all of which help you thrive in the workplace.

Soft Skills

Soft skills are a group of non-technical, personal skills that are transferable and therefore incredibly useful in most workplaces. There are certain soft skills that are especially useful for nurses, such as communication and time management. When you study online nursing programs, you will develop these skills even further and will have practical examples of times when you have used them. These you can give to a potential employer in an interview setting. For example, you will know that nurses have to be incredibly organized, as you will have multiple patients at the same time and need to treat each one with equal dedication and care. When studying online nursing programs alongside your job, you will have to have excellent organizational skills in order to complete your course to a high level while still working and providing a high level of care to patients.

Costs

One of the main reasons why people may not pursue further education, particularly at masters level, is the huge costs involved in being a student. These can include rent, accommodation, travel, and tuition fees and can make studying financially unviable for many people. When you study online nursing programs, you can help save money but working mostly from home. This means you don't have to worry so much about finding accommodation on or near campus or commuting to classes every day. Furthermore, the ability to continue working alongside your course allows you to still earn money while you learn, and online course tuition fees are often cheaper than in-person courses, and you may be eligible for financial support from your college or university.

Location

If your local educational institution does not offer the types or levels of qualifications you need, then it can present a lot of problems. You may have to waste time and money studying something you don't want or need, or you may have to choose not to study at all. When learning online, your location matters a lot less, which means you have access to a greater number of courses and institutions. This opens up more opportunities to learn, and therefore progress your career. Additionally, you have more control over your learning environment and the pace at which you work. This can make the experience more enjoyable, as you can learn more on your own terms. This makes you a skilled and independent learner and helps to develop positive learning methods, which can come in handy in the future each time you have to learn something new.

Becoming a nurse is a varied and demanding career, but if you are passionate about helping and supporting others, then it could be the perfect field for you. There are many jobs and roles within the nursing profession, and online nursing programs can help you specialize in a certain area, delivering high-quality care to those you work with, as well as opening up more job opportunities. Nurses are highly skilled and caring individuals who are essential parts of healthcare teams, working to advocate for their patients, educate people and create meaningful engagements to promote the maintenance of health, treat illness and injury, and many other tasks and responsibilities.