Any nurses out there? IF so, what is the advantage of LPN/RN beside the paid. and the authority.?

Question

Looking to start a different career. Gearing toward the health profession. willing to start as a practical nurse and work my way up Someone please tell me can you make just a decent living as an LPN>

Thanks

Answer 1

Yes you can make a decent living as an LPN but you will have more doors open for you and better opportunities for advancement as an RN. Also being an RN with a BSN will take you far.

Answer 2

An LPN usually starts out at around eleven to fourteen dollars an hour - not a fantastic wage by any means. That, however, is for general hospital work. If one were to obtain a good two years of general experience, then one could start doing home care or private duty nursing, and the pay there is usually better. Learn as many special procedures as you can, such as how to manage a ventilator, how to care for a person on home oxygen, how to assist with physical therapy for a person who is homebound. Every additional skill you can document - and yes, you do have to PROVE you have the skills you claim - will increase your earning power.
An LPN completes school in one year. There are still a few schools for RNs that only require two years, but the trend is for all of us to complete four years of college before taking boards. The RN is the one who manages a team of allied professionals in hospital, manages an entire unit within a hospital (such as an orthopedics ward, a pediatric ward, a newborn nursery) or in home care, manages cases. As a home care RN, I recieve a request from the patient's physician through my office to admit a person to home care. I go to the home and meet the person, conduct a thorough assessment, and then admit the person. That assessment includes every aspect of that person's life, that I can more fully know what support services the patient will need. I'll then go back to the office, put together a chart with the doctor's orders, and send copies of same to all relevant allied services, such as medical laboratory, pharmacy, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, dietary department, the patient education department, diagnostic imaging department (x-ray) - even a chaplain if requested.
I then draw up a nursing care plan and assign LPNs and nursing assistants as needed. The LPN and nursing assistants will do the actual hands-on care of the homebound patient. My tasks are to coordinate and communicate and evaluate. I will occasionally take on a patient who requires a very high degree of technical nursing skills, but even a homebound patient who is totally dependent on a respirator (ventilator) can usually be cared for competently by an experienced LPN. As an RN, my starting salary will be around 18 to 22 dollars an hour - again, not a fabulous wage - but home care usually brings the higher salaries. I can also expect much more if I'm the RN head nurse in a highly specialized unit in the hospital such as the acute coronary unit (ICU). Or I can also take on private duty patients, which in some cases have brought salaries as high as forty dollars an hour.
So you see, there is quite a range of income potential, and also quite a surprising variety of skills one can achieve.
Just between you and me - as things stand now, hospital duty absolutely s u c k s !!! You need a couple years' hospital practice to garner the skills you'll need to start in home care or private duty nursing - but get the h e l l out of working in the hospital as soon as you can.
Good luck! And one last thing - it can seem kind of pointless much of the time, but you'll do well indeed to join your professional association, the American Nurse's Association - the ANA.

Answer 3

Don't just look at the pay scale difference!! Believe me, it can change DRAMATICALLY from area to area/state to state etc. For example, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, there are 2 Air Force Bases (both with medium-sized hospitals on base) and 2 Army bases (one with a care unit-like a Family Practice/Quick Care place) and one with a Large Hospital. Also, there is a major nursing school, a university that has a nursing program, and 2 community colleges that go up to LPN for training (2 year). So, with Nurses (both LPN and RN) occasionally coming out of the military bases as prior officers retiring to the civilian world but still wanting to work, a major nursing school, and 2 community colleges, demand is bottom of the barrel low!!! We are talking $12.00/hour for RNs!!! 12 dollars per hour for just having done 4 difficult years of nursing school??? NO. On the other hand, I have seen, like where I used to live in New Hampshire, RNs starting at closer to $22.00/hour and LPNs around $15.00/hour. See? That is just for pay.
Now, for authority, benefits, etc. LPNs often will wind up doing the job of an LNA and doing almost nothing but changing beds if a small hosp with limited housekeeping staff, bedpans and cleaning off total-care or just patients who made a mess and so on. They will also be able to do some meds. I have seen LPNs as a charge nurse(of a shift not a ward or hospital) just like charge nurse of night shift let's say...which I have seen...they will wind up doing all the meds for the patients, document and chart all the different data from patients, etc.
Registered Nurses can do lots more. However, like Peter Parker's Uncle said to Peter(Spiderman),"With great power comes great responsibility." Well, it is true. You can do things every day (besides just dispensing oral meds) that can kill the patient. You will be responsible for ensuring patients get the right amount of IV fluid (even too much saline can kill someone), but on top of that, you are responsible for mixing meds into the IV solution, or an IV push which is putting medicine right into the TUBE that goes into the patient instead of it being greatly diluted first by the full (or at least partially full) bag of fluid. Well, with an IV push, some drugs that, administered any other way, even right into the muscle (like arm or leg or buttocks) is pretty harmless but IV push, you go too fast, too much medicine at once, you kill your patient. So sometimes you do things like that, you could become an OR nurse...if you are looking for pay, that is the way to go...WOW!!! I have seen some make more than some doctors!!! Again, responsibility...in the OR, the patient is...well, part way dead, really. It is the anesthesia doctor who handles most of that. But you could be doing some of the stuff the doctor does (like I did, but more minor surgeries) and that takes standing still for hours though. Anyway, in the whole medicine field, for the most part, nearly every job you can think of, its pay is directly related (at least in some part but usually it is the top 1 or second reason) to responsibility and danger/risk of hurting or killing the patient. I have had 2 spinal surgeries, both in my neck. My spinal surgeon makes sickening amounts of money. But, if he so much as sneezes or laughs a little too hard (thus making his hand jerk) at the wrong time, the patient is either dead, or paralyzed. If he had done that in my surgeries, he would even have paralyzed my breathing muscles 'cause it is so high up the spine. But if you are good at attention to detail, are good at focusing, and can learn at least moderately quickly, hey you can become any kind of nurse you want. Even a nurse practitioner...they are very very similar to family practice/ internal medicine/pediatrics doctors or physician assistants where you can actually diagnose and prescribe medicine to patients you see, treat, and sometimes cure. Good luck!