Types of Nurses

• In general, nurses can be divided into two categories. LPNs/LVN's are known as licensed professional nurses or licensed vocational nurses. RNs are known as registered nurses. An RN completes more years of education than an LPN. An RN can also supervise an LPN and earns a higher base salary.
  
  

Education Required

• An LPN must complete between nine and 18 months of training at a school of nursing or community college. The LPN studies subjects, such as maintaining a sterile field, understanding the psychosocial needs of patients and taking a patient's heart rate and blood pressure. An RN studies all such subjects but in greater depth. An RN may earn a community college degree or a four-year degree.
  
  

On-the-Job Training

• Nurses receive extensive hands on training. Before a nurse can graduate from a nursing program, she must spent a period of full-time training at a hospital or nursing home directly learning nursing procedures on actual patients. Such procedures include insertion of intravenous lines and monitoring of a patient's condition. Once a nurse starts her job, she may be assigned to work with a senior staffer to learn more about a specific hospital's policies and procedures. She may also be assigned a trial period, such as six weeks, to acquaint herself with how the hospital is run.
  
  

Nursing Specialties

• Nurses who wish to specialize in a specific field, such as emergency medicine or renal nursing, can complete specialized coursework and take certification exams. Often a hospital will help the nurse in question study for her certification by allowing her time off to take the exam and assigning her to work with a senior nurse so can gain the required hours on the job before taking the exam.
  
  

Job Recruitment

• Nurses are recruited in many ways. Hospitals will send representatives directly to speak to a graduating class in a nursing school about available assignments for entry level positions. A recruiter may also place an advertisement in a local nursing journal seeking candidates for a specific position. For more specialized positions, a hospital might advertise in specialized nursing journals and send representatives to speak at nursing conventions. Temporary nursing agencies also recruit candidates with at least two years of full-time nursing experience to work on a per diem basis.
  
  

Job Retention Efforts

• "The United States is in the midst of nursing shortage that is expected to intensify," according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Such problems stem from an aging workforce and nurses who change jobs because of poor working conditions. According to the same source, "13 percent of newly licensed RNs had changed principal jobs after one year." As a result, hospitals and other employers have stepped up efforts to help retain nurses by increasing average pay and working with nurses to address their concerns about working conditions. Efforts have also been made to increase the number of nursing educators, provide scholarships for nursing students and give nurses more on the job autonomy.