May 6 through May 12 is National Nurses Week! At Sunrise Senior Living communities, we count on these dedicated professionals to help our residents live their best quality of life every day.

If you are contemplating a nursing career or are a nurse looking to make a change in employment, the opportunities are endless. In recognition of National Nurses Week, we’re shining a spotlight on the healthcare settings that rely on nurses.

Career Opportunities for Nurses

Here are a few places you will find career opportunities for nursing professionals:

• Hospitals: This is the setting most associated with nurses. Nurses are an integral part of the healthcare delivery process at hospitals. From helping deliver babies to participating in surgeries, nurses fulfill a variety of clinical roles in hospitals. Many nurses also fulfill administrative roles in hospitals, such as managing nursing staff and working as a liaison with insurance companies.
• Rehabilitation centers: Some health conditions require a patient to be transferred from a hospital to a rehabilitation center to continue their recovery. They might be recovering following an injury, surgery, or even a serious bout with the flu. These skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers require nurses for tasks like medication management, wound care, and IV therapy.
• Long-term care center: If an older adult or a person with a disability requires around-the-clock skilled nursing care, a long-term center is often the best solution. These are also called nursing homes or nursing care centers. Nurses oversee medication management programs, work with center medical directors to monitor and treat chronic health conditions, and help create care plans for every resident.
• Skilled home health care agency: Homebound older adults often work closely with nurses from home health agencies during their recovery. If a senior was hospitalized for an infected wound, for example, their physician might order home health agency services for them after discharge. The nurse will help the client with wound care while educating them and their family on how to care for their injury.
• Hospice care: When a person has a life-limiting illness, their physician might recommend the support of hospice care. This palliative type of care relies on nurses to help patients and their families. Because hospice care focuses on managing a patient’s symptoms instead of curing their disease, it takes a special person to work as a hospice nurse.
• Dialysis center: Another place you will find nurses is a dialysis center. Patients with kidney failure rely on dialysis to do the work their kidneys can no longer do. Nurses in a dialysis center manage patient care, assess each patient’s response to dialysis, and provide education on lifestyle choices that impact patient health.
• Urgent care center: In many locations across the country, nurses and nurse practitioners manage urgent care centers. They assess health issues, provide treatment within the scope of their state laws, and sometimes refer the patient to a physician for follow-up. As shortage of primary care physicians increases, this trend is likely to continue.
• Assisted living communities: In assisted living communities, we rely on nurses to fill a wide range of roles. They aid in creating individual care plans for each patient.

If you are a nurse contemplating a career in senior living, we encourage you to visit our Nursing Careers page. You can watch a quick video highlighting a day in the life of a Sunrise nurse and explore current openings for part-time and full-time LPNs, LVNs, and RNs across the country.

Source: Sunrise Senior Living