If you’re a nurse who is considering the next steps in your career, there are many, many exciting pathways ahead of you, roads you may not yet have even considered walking.
From nursing leadership to nurse educator roles or even medical research, the possibilities for ambitious, career-focused nurses are virtually endless.
Stay with us as we take you through some options to consider if you’re eager to propel your nursing career to new heights.
Nursing Career Progression Option 1: Leadership
When we find ourselves excelling in our current roles, taking on extra responsibilities, and striving for more, the natural next step to consider is a leadership or management position.
Leadership in nursing takes many different forms, from mentorship to ward management, or even becoming a nurse educator. Of course, nursing leadership is not for everyone. Stepping up brings with it a great deal of pressure, as well as high expectations of nurse leaders in charge of consistently delivering positive patient outcomes in healthcare settings.
Despite this, when stepping up to higher roles, not only can remuneration increase, but the potential rewards in terms of our personal and professional growth are also abundant. Increased seniority in the workplace often means we are given more of a voice, a say in shaping how things operate. Being trusted with the authority to lead a team can boost our confidence, as well as develop our resilience, critical thinking skills, and ability to make, quite literally, life-saving decisions.
Nursing Career Progression Option 2: Further Study
As a registered nurse who has already completed the requisite qualifications and obtained their nursing license, but perhaps doesn’t care to go into leadership or management, you may be wondering what’s next.
The truth is that it can, at times, feel easier to stay in our existing roles. It’s also perfectly okay to be content, and proud of what we’ve achieved in our careers to date. Becoming qualified to practice as a registered nurse in a fast-paced healthcare setting is by no means easy. It takes years of study, clinical placement, dedication, and drive to get there. But staying idle in our roles can sometimes cause us to stagnate, and even become complacent in our careers.
Building on our industry knowledge so that it remains fresh, relevant, and up-to-date by pursuing further education, such as RN to NP programs, can help reignite our passion for our work and remind us why we started in the first place. In the end, remembering our ‘why’ is the key to staying motivated, satisfied, and productive in our jobs.
Nursing Career Progression Option 3: Medical Research
If you’re a nurse who’s passionate about discovering fresh innovations in the medical realm, a career in advanced medical research could be for you.
There are many paths a career in medical research can take, but a post-doctoral thesis or a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) can be a good place to start. Within the scope of this type of research, medical researchers often have the opportunity to uncover new and unexplored concepts in their chosen field of specialty, which can lead to important advances in the medical field. Not only does following this career path allow us to make critical contributions to the progression of our society and public health, but it can also prove exceptionally rewarding and inspiring in terms of the depth to which medical researchers can take their work.
With medical research, technology, and innovation continually advancing year after year, the sky is quite literally the limit for nurses interested in following this particular career path.
If you’re a registered nurse who’s looking to progress your career, it never hurts to aim high.
Setting sights on professional advancement options like nursing leadership roles, for example, can bring an abundance of rewards, and not only financial.
But if leadership is not for you, simply taking on further study to refresh and upskill can help nurses stay motivated and driven in their roles.
If you wanted to take this even further, a career in medical research could also be on the horizon, especially if you’re interested in writing a post-doctoral thesis or undertaking a Ph.D.