The Nurse PhD : A Leader in A Vital Profession
At present, barely half of the nursing faculty members in the US have a doctorate degree. Considering the many advances made in the way different chronic illnesses are treated, there is obviously a need for research aimed at helping patients in coping with their illness. Such research invariably requires nursing professionals with a PhD degree.
One of the reasons for the lack of nurse PhDs is because often nurses tend to have their careers interrupted more often. Many nurses are women who also have to fulfill other responsibilities. Therefore, many continue their education through part-time courses. Moreover, clinical experience is considered as a prerequisite for graduate education. As a result of this requirement, we find fewer nurses completing the doctorate early in their career, thus reducing their chances of going on to become researchers, academics, and administrators. Nowadays, in order to reverse this trend, a number of nursing schools have created programs for admitting students into their graduate programs directly on completion of undergraduate or master’s programs.
Curricula of PhD Programs in Nursing
A doctorate degree in nursing prepares students for pursuing careers in education, health administration, clinical research, as well as advanced clinical practice. Besides, doctoral degrees produce experts within the nursing profession confident of assuming leadership roles in clinical and academic settings, research, and course work. The emphasis of the PhD in Nursing program may vary from health education to policy research. Most of the doctoral programs for nurses confer the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree on students who have to work individually on research projects and then complete a dissertation. Doctorate degree programs can be pursued on a part or full time basis.
Nursing Research
Today, nurses are involved in clinical research in various areas, such as cancer care, diabetes care, and eating disorders. During the last two decades, medical advances have mainly involved advancing treatment, but not cures. But often the treatment itself may cause problems for patients, like for example, the undesirable side effects that chemotherapy produces. Nurses have opportunities for finding solutions to such problems through research, or studies related to managing illness and treatment.
PhD in Nursing – Average Salary
Faculty salaries may vary by rank and institution but they usually range from $50,000 for assistant professors to above $100,000 for professors.
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PhD in Nursing Programs
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Preparing for Nursing School Entrance Exam
The entrance exam offered by nursing schools is a competitive and time-checked test meant to determine the students’ level of knowledge and their credentials. The lowest mark for getting admission into a nursing program is an average pass. Many examinations are also provided by certified agencies in the educational field either on location or online.
In most parts of the United States, nursing school programs usually have very competitive admission processes. Most schools that offer training to Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses require candidates to take a qualifying entrance exam first, for ensuring that they have a solid understanding and knowledge of the prerequisite subjects. Some schools require a specific score on the nursing exam for students to be eligible for admission. Others might evaluate an applicant’s scores on the admission test together with other factors like the GPA for offering admission.
Some of the most common pre-entrance exams required by nursing schools include the TEAS (Test of Essential Academic Skills), the NET (Nursing Entrance Test), and the HESI (Health Education Systems, Inc.). Aspiring nurses should find out from the schools they intend applying to about which specific tests they will have to take, and about what impact their scores would have on the admission process. Most nursing entrance exams generally test students on a specific set of important subject areas, but they do vary a bit in format and test content.
To make sure you pass the entrance exam, see that you study well and also try to practice attempting the test as much as possible before your actual test date. If you know in advance which particular nursing school admission exam you will be taking, you will be able to prepare yourself well. You could also use study guides and useful tips for the different admission tests, often available online and also in print.
The basic entrance exam is aimed at testing the general medical knowledge, mental capability, and speech articulation of students.
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How to Prepare for Nursing School Entrance Exam
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How to Apply to Nursing School
Nursing forms an integral segment of patient healthcare. But recently we had a shortage of nurses. Even so, getting admission into nursing schools is becoming increasingly competitive since the last few years. This does not however deter those who have set their hearts on becoming nurses.
For those who would love to be in a job that involves caring for other people, nursing could be a very good career option as it would offer both stability as well as job satisfaction. Also, job opportunities are plenty both in the public and private sectors.
To qualify for a career in nursing, you would need to perform reasonably well in high school. You would need a high school diploma or something equivalent like the GED. If you have performed rather well in subjects like Mathematics and Sciences in your high school courses, this would improve your chances of satisfying the application requirements without any hassle. In addition, you would be required to have the SAT or ACT, while non-native English speakers would also need to take the TOEFL.
Once you have the qualifying requirements, you need to choose the right nursing school. There are many to choose from nowadays, some genuine, others that are not recognized. Some could even be out to take undue advantage of desperate nursing aspirants. So visit different schools offering nursing programs and and ask for their application forms. After checking these out find out if you qualify for their program or not. Some schools may require a few prerequisite courses to be completed before offering candidates admission into their nursing program.
Next, understand all the requirements thoroughly and fill out the application form. To detect any errors during the filling out process, ask a friend to go through your application. The form has to be submitted along with your high school transcripts, a few recommendation letters and an essay explaining why you want to pursue a nursing career.
Nursing School Admission Essay
The admission essay is one of the most crucial tasks in any nursing school application. Your essay has to convince the admission committee members that you have always been a disciplined and sincere student and will be sure to apply these qualities while performing your duties as a nurse. Understandably therefore, your nursing school essay or personal statement is the most important part of your entire application package.
The type of essays required by various nursing schools could be different. Some might ask you to answer a specific question, others could ask you to just tell them something about yourself. But whatever the requirement, remember that your essay will help you stand out from among thousands of applicants competing for admission. It will demonstrate to the nursing school that you’re the ideal candidate and would make a fine addition to their student body.
So try and make your admission essay unique, vibrant and interesting, and emphasize your personality and clear thinking about your future goals as these are things that cannot be highlighted in the other sections of the application.
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Registered Nurse Prerequisites
If you like taking care of sick people and assisting in their recovery, a career in nursing would be a good option for you. A degree in nursing is required for entering the medical profession as a nurse. But to acquire this degree you will have to make sure you have the necessary nursing prerequisites.
To start with, all aspiring nurses must be high school graduates or possess a GED. Not just that, they need to maintain an excellent grade point average when they are in high school besides attending classes like biology and health science that are pertinent to a nursing major.
You will have to start out with either an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in nursing. Acquiring an associate’s degree could help in getting admission into bachelor’s degree programs that sometimes have really long waiting lists. However, the associate’s as well as bachelor’s programs offer classroom experience and also clinical practice as part of their curriculum.
To make sure you have the necessary prerequisites, plan your course of study with the help of your school counselor, preferably one who is knowledgeable about what is required for obtaining a nursing degree. If you fail to take any of the essential courses, you will have to spend the summer in college completing them.
Unfortunately, most universities and colleges offer only a limited number of courses in the summer. So if the course you overlooked is not provided in the summer, you will have to wait till the Fall or Spring semester to complete the missing class. Students who are faced with such a problem should talk to their guidance counselor and find out if a similar course available at another university would be accepted in place of the missing nursing prerequisite. Moreover, nowadays many colleges and universities offer LPN Nursing classes online. Hence, you could also discuss this option with your guidance counselor. But either way, you will require the written permission of your counselor or your program director for attending an outside school for making such classes count in place of the missing nursing prerequisites.
No matter if you are going back to college, moving from one community college to another one, or going to college straight from high school, you will have to fulfill certain nursing prerequisites for obtaining your nursing degree. Each nursing college or university may have has their own specific course prerequisites, but nearly all of them require nursing candidates to satisfactorily complete courses in:
- Nutrition (3 credits)
- Anatomy and Physiology (6-8 credits)
- Microbiology (4 credits)
- Chemistry (4 credits)
- Statistics (3 credits)
- Psychology (3 credits)
- Sociology (3 credits)
However, some institutions permit certain courses to be replaced by others such as Psychology, Economics, or some type of Math course in place of Statistics. Also, most of them will permit a small number of relevant transfer credits from some other accredited school in case students don’t meet all the requirements. But it is primarily the responsibility of the student to check if such courses satisfy the new school’s nursing prerequisites.
Tips – How to Write Nursing School Admission Essay?
It is not uncommon to find that most nursing schools have a long waiting list of candidates seeking admission. For those interested in becoming nurses, this situation creates even more pressure to come up with a unique nursing school admission essay, something that will help them stand out from the hordes of nursing aspirants.
Some nursing schools call it a nursing school admission essay, others may call it a statement of purpose, a letter of intent, or a personal essay. But it all signifies the same thing. The school just wants you to clarify why you want to become a nurse, what qualities you have that will help you make a fine nurse, and why they should admit you into their nursing program.
Unless you’re interested in research, it is not really your duty to tell anyone in the nursing school something that they don’t know. After all, they are the professionals who are going to educate you. Also, your admission essay should not include a debate on issues in the nursing field. The essay is not about expressing your views but about how you would be successful in their nursing program and by making a great nurse how you would represent their program creditably.
It is most important to accentuate your personal qualities in your admission essay, specially those that are essential for a nursing career. Since your main duties as a nurse will involve caring for patients and serving their needs, you could include a short story about any experience of volunteering or about a nurse or patient you met who helped you see that the nursing field was best suited to you. Your essay should also show you have the ability to work hard and under pressure, and also learn and obey orders well.
People often have to grapple with problems like going through college with a family and having a full time job as well, which could be the reason for their poor performance in exams. So if you got a low grade or a low GPA during a particular semester due to some specific event that most probably won’t be repeated, then go ahead and tell the nursing school about this. Just be succinct and don’t try to elicit sympathy. Remember it will be harder to justify years of getting low grades than just one semester’s poor performance.
At the same time, if there is anything significant that could not be included in the rest of your application, like for example that you are a single mother raising three children, or that you had lost a loved one and that this affected your performance, do provide this information through your admission essay.
In short, let your essay convince the admission committee about your personality, your genuine interest in the nursing profession, and the likelihood of your succeeding in their program and thus make a powerful first impression. Show them that you’re the ideal candidate for their nursing program and that you will be an asset to their nursing school.
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Preparing for Nursing School Entrance Examination
Admission process for the nursing school programs has been competitive in many areas of the United States. Most of the nursing schools that offer training for Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses need prospective candidates to take the admission exam for these programs. This entrance exam ensures that the candidates have a firm, basic knowledge of the nursing field. Most of the nursing schools expect students to attain a certain grade on the board of nursing examination for getting admission, while other colleges weigh candidate scores of the entrance test along with some other criteria like GPA to decide who gets accepted.
Popular Nursing School Entrance Tests
There are three most popular pre-entrance tests that schools of nursing require potential students to take for as a requirement for admission – such as the NET (Nursing Entrance Test), the HESI (Health Education Systems, Inc.) and TEAS (Test of Essential Academic Skills). Pre-nursing candidates must be verified by the schools that they are using to and determine which exams they will be needed to take, also as how the scores involve the entree process. When nursing entrance tests all usually test on a particular selection of subject fields, the different editions do vary fairly in content and format.
The entrance exam of nursing school is an aggressive time-checked exam that is intended to estimate the student’s bona fides and worth of knowledge. Low grade mark that increases one percolation into an application to follow higher learning is a medium pass. Many examinations are there that are offered by a licensed agency on the educational division either on location or online.
The fundamental nursing school admission exam attempts to exam the mental capacity, speech expression and common medical familiarity of the candidate. Usually there is a verbal exam that ends for an hr involving 60 interviews every one is owed a single instant. The Science exam relatively pursues the same program while that of previous subject.
Another kind of the nursing school admission exam is left to those in practice already aim to follow online learning at an advanced level. This exam is harder and involves several fields that are separated into around five divisions. The language is there and mathematical exam that leads the spelling testing. Also the beginner is examined on their talents at learning and summarizing histories. Also they must answer interviews on organic science field before employing in questions associated to career pattern. Any kind of test, the nursing school admission exam is compulsory to judge the knowledge and skills of the candidate even later they have found a pass score to attend university. Also it aids to develop the career opportunities of those practicing already.
To pass the admission test, it is essential to study and have to do hard work at collecting information as much possible that should do before the examination. By understanding which particular admission test they will be aiming, pre-nursing school candidates can adequately train themselves. Tips and guides are there to study for the entire admission exams, often both in print and online.
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Preparation for admission to Nursing School
If you are planning to get into a nursing school, you need to go through a series of steps that are important in getting you prepared for the nursing school entrance examination and other admission procedures.
Step One: The initial step is making a thorough preparation for entrance examination when the people like to join in a nursing school to become a nurse. It is important to know about the nurse entail? Have to spend some more time to do this examination. Be sure about what is the necessary thing need to do to become a nurse. The nature and personality must suit for this kind of job. So it is necessary to verify whether the person personality who likes to become a nurse is fit for this form of job.
Step Two: Read carefully about the admission policy and school catalogues. Nowadays it is very easy to get the information about these details through internet. Also there is no need to use the manual college copies and student service center catalogues to browse in the online.
Step Three: If it is decided to join in a nursing school and explored through the relevant details from nursing education is the leading wish of yours that can make it to provide creative powers to use. Analyze about how to make the chance to enter on the nursing education. Come out with the creative or innovative tips of your individual. Also it is the best idea to read more than three books under these topics.
Step Four: Get ready as much as possible. Completely, Even though the time among the application deadline and the decision of yours is more, the higher opportunity is getting accepted by you. For this reason, the person can do all type of activities that are the school choices of them.
Step Five: A standardized test is required to take at the proper time. The time of the standardized exam is taken depending up on the time when it is applied on nursing school. The most necessary thing is to build the deadline. Try to attend the test when you get the time.
Step Six: Maintain high grades. In the middle of conducting on the extracurricular activities will make the high grade. High grade must be maintained as much as possible. Determination, willingness and intelligence are provided by obtaining high grade to work difficult. In addition, receiving high grades are provided that it have been learned what was instructed, and since it reminds it is the school to study, the better can learn, the better can provide you to work in society.
Conclusion: Go for the nursing school when you really like to become a nurse. There is no need to worry about the competition. Getting into a nursing school starts with preparation of your mind.
Nursing Job Interview Questions
One can not underestimate the importance of nursing job interview whether the person is a recent nursing school graduate or a knowledgeable nurse planning a move ahead in her career. The most significant part of the job hunt for nurses is the nursing job interview. In this article, you can find some useful tips and questions for nursing job interviews, which can help new nursing school graduates as well as experienced or skilled nurses.
Pre-Interview Preparation
At first, you should prepare your credentials. The credentials which are absolutely needed for the nursing employment interview as follows:
- Copy of your resume. Proofread your resume and correct mistakes if any.
- Copies of your nursing license.
- Typed list of your past managers and references. It is important to include their full names, titles, telephone numbers and current addresses.
- Copy of your recent grade report.
Get ready for Nursing Interview Questions
Here is a list of typical nursing job interview questions that you should prepare to answer.
- How would you deal with a difficult doctor?
- How would your describe your interpersonal skills as a team player?
- How would you handle unexpected situations, like being short staffed and having to do a treatment that you have not done so far.
- How would deal with difficult patients and/or their relatives?
Also it is necessary to practice answering difficult nursing job interview questions in advance.
- Recent nursing graduate must be ready to explain to the interviewer what traits they have that will make them respond rapidly to the demands of the new unit.
- If you had any negative experiences in your previous job, you should explain what you learned from these experiences, and how could you use the experience in a positive way in the new job.
Nursing job questions to ask the interviewer
Here are some examples of questions that you should ask a potential employer.
- What is the nurse-to-patient ratio?
- Is there staff to support the nurses?
- What are the responsibilities and accountability of nurses?
- What opportunities for professional growth are available to the nurses?
Please bear in mind that these are just some examples of nursing job questions to ask. You should feel free to ask any additional questions that you feel are important.
Throughout the interview process, you may encounter some questions that will require some self-examination. Some seemingly easy questions may point to extremely important factors for yourself and the hospital. You should also understand that some type of questions would be asked to test how you would handle stressful situations. Take a deep breath and think calmly before you answer such questions.
Why Choose Nursing as a Career?
Why choose nursing as a profession? This question is often asked to nurses and nurse graduates. Well, the answer is obvious. No other career offers the same opportunities like the nursing career. And how the nursing career is different from medicine? While both medicine and nursing are needed by the society, these professions are different. Doctors focus on the cure of the health problems but the nurses focus on serving the patients and their families adapt to illness.
How many professionals have the opportunity of being close to other persons in their saddest as well as their happiest times, during illness and during good health, at birth and at death? Nurses have this gift of sharing the closest moments with their patients and therefore nurses are the health care professionals that are the most trusted by the patients.
Nurses have to be caring as well as smart because of the diversity of roles and increasing complexity in health care field. There are lots of difficulties in the nursing job. Nurses are often the first persons who recognize patients’ problems and interact with the medication team till the doctors or the healthcare team arrives. Nurses should be very intelligent, as they need to synthesize information from all other sciences with the knowledge of medicine and nursing.
These days, there are different routes to become a registered nurse (RN). After graduating from an accredited RN Nursing degree program, one has to pass the NCLEX-RN board examination to get the RN license. Bachelor degree programs and associate degree programs are the two common programs. Associate degree in Nursing (ADN) can be completed in 2 years, whereas the Bachelors degree in Nursing (BSN) takes four years. The role of nurses with ADN degree is limited to certain extent compared to those with the BSN degree. Some cities like the Greater Boston require a bachelor’s degree in nursing to be eligible for the job of an RN. More scholarships are increasingly becoming available for studying nursing because of the shortage of nursing professionals.
The shortage of nurses is expected to last for many more years. Due to this high demand for nurses, nurse get decent salaries starting from around $50,000 in the bigger metropolitan cities. Generally, the full-time schedule for the nurses involve three 12-hour work shifts per week and with extra work during evening and night shifts, the nurses can make much more. Most of the hospitals offer signing incentives and liberal continuing education benefits for nurses who want to gain additional qualifications in the nursing profession.
There are many more benefits in a nursing career apart from the decent salary. You are always learning and growing in this profession, and you won’t find dull moments in the daily routine. Plus, there are many diverse job opportunities, flexibility in job timings, variety of facilities and job settings – which make the job more interesting. And most imprtantly, you would get tremendous satisfaction by making a difference in others’ lives.
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Best 10 Nursing Schools for 2010-11
Nursing is one of the most recession proof jobs. In these days of economic downturn, nursing jobs are still in high demand. No wonder, new nursing schools are coming up every day to meet this demand for nursing professionals. You should however exercise caution in selecting your nursing school. You have to make sure that the nursing school you plan to join is properly accredited and has the top instructional facilities and instructors. We have listed the top 10 nursing schools for 2010-11 in this article.
1. The Virginia University located in Charlottesville, Virginia, is nation’s top most nursing school. Along with the preferred degree programs UVA has direct entry for Master nursing programs. This school allows direct entry to bachelor degree students from another discipline for Master’s Nursing programs.
2. Johns Hopkins University at Maryland, provides various degree programs such as Phd degrees in Nursing Philosophy and Nursing Practice and, post doctoral degrees, Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing.
3. University of Washington Located in city of Seattle is another top most nursing degrees school in USA. UW provides top most degrees along with practical guidance at the hospital affiliated to University.
4. North Carolina University of Chapel Hill is another best school which provides various nursing programs. UNC Chapel Hill offers nursing fellowships, specific programs for RN, Nursing Master’s program, PhD programs and distance learning option.
5. University of Iowa‘s College of Nursing offers certificate degree programs, joint degree programs. Along with this list of traditional schools, we also provide you the top online schools for your reference. All of these programs are nationally recognized. Those programs offers rolling enrollment which allows you begin your education as per your wish.
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Top 10 Nursing Schools 2010
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