Nurses Salary

One of the great come-ons of being a nurse is the nurses salary. Aside from the honor of helping other people, the salary of nurses is pretty high compared to the salaries of other jobs. Granted being a nurse is hard, the hours are long and the work is sometimes tiring but at the end of the day, you are able to help people.

The Highs and Lows of Nurses Salary

The job of a nurse encompasses a lot of things; it involves taking care of different patients, assisting doctors and other hospital staff, doing laboratory tests and assisting in diagnostic exams, and keeping a patient’s chart updated. A nurses salary can depend on his or her specialty, his or her position in the hospital or clinic he or she works for, and other personal qualifications he or she might have. A more experienced nurse will also have a lot of bonuses and benefits to go along with the high salary.

Nurses Salary – Credentials

A basic staff nurses salary in the United States amounts to about $65,651 per year, though this amount can vary. A newly-hired nurse will earn lower than that amount, while a nurse with more experience can earn higher than that amount. Nurses who have extra credentials also have higher salaries than the average nurse. Nurses who have specialization in different aspects of patient care and/or fields of medicine will also have a higher salary. For example, a staff nurse who is also a surgical first assistant can earn an average of $80,236 a year. Besides their basic nursing job, their additional responsibilities include evaluation of pre-operative patients and their plans, performs surgical procedures under the supervision of a surgeon, and functions as a scrub and circulating nurse. They must have at least 2 years of operating room experience, a certification as a registered nurse first assistant, certification in perioperative nursing, and they must be familiar with standard concepts, practices, and procedures of surgical procedures in a particular field of surgery.

A licensed practical nurse can earn on an average about $41,325 but if a licensed practical nurse expands his or her studies to earn an associate degree in nursing and become a registered nurse after passing the National Council Licensure Examination-RN (NCLEX-RN), his or her pay can be significantly higher.

It is true that nurses salary is quite high, but along with that high pay is a greater responsibility towards the patients under their care.