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The first requirement is to ask yourself if you fully understand the profession. If you're in your early teens or younger, It may look glamorous and exciting, because your main exposure to nursing may be seeing it as portrayed on TV and in the movies. Everything is clean, everyone is competent, patients are cooperative, and all problems are solved before the screen fades to black.

Instead of using that sanitized influence for your decision, give yourself some real-life exposure to nursing. If you're still very young, ask your parents or relatives to take you to a hospital for a visit of an hour of two. If your school offers similar opportunities to explore medical facilities, take advantage of them. Get some close-up and real information about the duties of nursing by watching them doing their jobs. When the opportunity comes, ask nurses your questions and express your interests in the career.

If you're a teenager, volunteer to work in a hospital or nursing home. You may start off with a one-day assignment for a specific purpose, such as career day or escorting tours. If you want to proceed for regular exposure to the profession, volunteer in a program such as candy stripers, where you'll be required to work regularly as a nurse's aide for several hours or days a week.

As you get more familiar with nursing duties and are still interested in studying for the profession, continue talking with your parents, relatives and school advisors. Check out post-high school education programs, and depending on your grades and ambitions, look into the various levels of nursing. For instance, nurse's aides don't need extensive technical training nor college degrees. However, understand that they are on the lowest pay levels of nursing.

Licensed practical nurses need two years or more of technical training and certification, but usually don't need college degrees. Registered nurses need college degrees and certification. Beyond those requirements, there are master's degrees, and at the top of the profession are those with doctorates in nursing and other medical fields. Those with bachelor's degrees and higher, must also expect to be qualified to take on management and executive duties as their careers advance.

As you explore the profession further, be sure you understand all the negative, as well as the positive aspects of it. The most positive, of course, is the knowledge that you are helping people get well. On a more practical note, you are entering a field where your services are in great demand, and there will be no economic ups and downs about employment.

Additionally, nursing jobs are available all over the world, and you can choose where you want to work and live. Nursing is also very important to the military, and career paths are very attractive for those with college degrees who choose to join as officers. Promotions, benefits and retirement programs are superior to most civilian hospital or medical office jobs.

The negative aspects of the profession include long hours, working inconvenient shifts, needs to make quick decisions in emergencies, avoiding errors in medication and exposure to upsetting physical conditions of patients. For instance, an emergency room nurse in a big city hospital must deal with the terrible results, sometimes within one eight-hour shift, of auto crashes, street crime victims, difficult births and children hurt in accidents.

All in all, the excellent reputation nurses have with the general public is well deserved. It is, in every sense of the word, a noble profession. If that's your career decision, good for you and good luck!

Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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