Can I work in the NICU being an RN?

BSN? RN? & LPN? HELP!!! CONFUSED ON DEGREE'S?

• Okay i am very confused on what degree in the medical feild i should go in. I really would like to be the nurse that helps the mother while she's in labor, and watchs her vidals and etc. Or i would like to work in the NICU with the new born babies because when my son was born i saw how the nurses did things and i knew i wanted to do that! I asked one nurse how many years she did in school and she said 2 years as a LPN, but some people are saying on websites you need a 2 year in BSN, or a 4year in RN. PLEASE HELP!! WHAT DEGREE DO I NEED TO TAKE UP! I REALLY NEED TO GET IN SCHOOL FAST!

• Answer:

  You don't have to start off as an LPN, you can go straight for your RN, and that's what you would HAVE to be if you want to work in labor & delivery or in the NICU. They do not hire LPNs. The minimum education to get your RN license is a two year Associates Degree in Nursing (ADN). There is about 1 year of prerequisite courses you must complete before you can even apply to the nursing program, so in all it would take about 3 years. You could also go straight for a full undergraduate degree, the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), which is a 4 year program from start to finish if you attend full time. The ADN programs teach you the basics, the fundamentals of nursing that are required to make you eligible to take the NCLEX license exam to get your RN license. The BSN programs go beyond those basics and you take more general ed courses, and the nursing courses will go more in depth into nursing theory, research, public health, and aspects of leadership and management. More job opportunities will be available to you with the BSN in the long run, but honestly it's fine to start off with only the ADN. Employers will often offer tuition assistance for you to complete the BSN, and the RN to BSN completion programs can mostly be completed online, which makes it really convenient. Also, understand that as a new graduate RN, you might not (and probably won't!) get the perfect job right off the bat. You might have to resort to taking a job in an area that you're less than thrilled about just to get some work experience or to get your foot in the door of a large facility where later you could transfer to a better job more suitable to your interests. Google your state board of nursing's website. Their site will have a page set up that lists all the nursing education programs in your state so you can start your search there, and start looking at the school's individual admissions requirements. Questions you can ask when you call them and talk with admissions would be how many students apply to the nursing program vs. how many get accepted, do they have wait lists, what's the average GPA of admitted students. You'll want to keep a high GPA while working on your prerequisite courses to remain competitive with the other students.