What Sets Rehabilitation Nursing Apart

Types of Nursing at Brooks Rehabilitation

To say a nurse is a crucial player in the medical field would be an understatement. Dubbed the patient advocate, these individuals provide primary care and treatment of the sick, while supporting patients physically and mentally through their recovery. It’s no wonder there’s a constant demand for these individuals.

The career has become especially popular among people wishing to get their foot in the medical arena, but who don’t want to be doctors. The good thing is that there are many different nursing specialties you can choose from, depending on your interests.

If you are considering pursuing a career in the field, it’s vital that you pick one that fits you best and yields the most job satisfaction. To help narrow down your selection, let’s look at some of the nursing careers that are most in-demand today.

Types of Nursing Careers

Most people imagine that all nurses are the same. They believe that every nurse goes through the same training, and each can do what the other does.

In reality, there are a vast array of different nursing specialties focusing on everything from emergency room cases and rehabilitation to heart health, genetics, pediatrics, and forensics. And each one has their own special set of skills.

So how do you choose the right one for you?

A great place to start is to lean toward a specialty that you resonate with, or one that goes with your personality. A few questions you can ask yourself include:

• Are you outgoing?
• Do you enjoy interacting with people?
• Are you okay with constant movement?
• Do you like working in a team?
• Can you engage individuals for extended time periods?

Perhaps the most attractive element is the fact that after getting your Registered Nurse (RN) or bachelor’s degree in nursing (BSN), you can start out with general nursing, and then advance or specialize later, depending on what sort of career in nursing you want. And even if you’ve already specialized, you can still switch to a different specialty later in your career.

Rehabilitation Nursing

Rehabilitation nursing is a specialty involving the provision of care to individuals with impaired functional ability. This includes people with disabilities, disabling injuries, or chronic illnesses.

The role of the nurse, in this case, is to work with these individuals and help them resume function and attain optimal health. The goal is that they ultimately gain independence, and get back to their normal lives.

In this respect, one might refer to it as physical therapy nursing, but it involves more than just physical therapy. In most cases, you’ll need to provide emotional support to the patient as well as constant reassurance throughout their recovery. It’s for this reason that rehab nursing jobs are some of the most rewarding and fulfilling of all nursing jobs.

Rehabilitation nurses can work in many different types of settings. Ideally, you’ll find demand for rehab nursing in hospitals or specialized facilities, as well as long-term inpatient care settings.

Pros of Rehabilitation Nursing Jobs

• Allows you to work in teams: Unlike other specialties in which nurses deal with their patients individually, here you’ll get to work hand-in-hand with practitioners from other fields to help patients. This includes physical therapists, social workers, and primary care physicians. Collaboration and sharing ideas make the process more social and enjoyable.
• You can work with patients at home: As a rehabilitation nurse, you get a chance to break away from the typical hospital setting. A significant portion of patients tend to need in-home care.
• You get to establish a long-term relationship with your patient: In most cases, patients that need rehabilitation will take some time to recover. You get to really know the patient and their family, making the journey all the more personal and rewarding in the long run.
• It can be extremely gratifying: While the pace is slow, there is a sense of satisfaction in watching your patient improve and get stronger and happier over time. Thanks to you, patients will come in on stretchers and go out walking.
• There are multiple opportunities for career growth: You also have the potential to grow your career and achieve more advanced specializations like pain management and gerontology.

Cons of Rehab Nursing Jobs

• The job can be physically tasking: Some of your patients might be having severe mobility issues. You may have to step in and support them physically.
• It can be emotionally taxing: Your assistance will often be required following a serious injury or diagnosis. You’ll need to be able to handle different emotions your patients — and members of their family — might be experiencing at the time.
• The pace is slow: Of all the nursing jobs, rehabilitation nurses stay with their patients the longest. You’ll need to have the patience to stick with each individual patient and repeat the same activities regularly until they get better.

Pediatric Nursing

As the name suggests, pediatric nurses primarily offer assistance and care to toddlers, infants, younger kids and adolescents. They perform many ordinary medical tasks on the children, including collecting patient histories, analyzing test results, doing physical exams, diagnosing conditions, and developing care plans.

Pediatric nurses can work in different settings, including clinics, hospitals, outpatient centers, schools, and physicians’ offices.

Pros of Pediatric Nursing

• Working with and helping children: Helping treat children with illnesses or impacted by various accidents and watching them get better can be very satisfying.
• Good income: On average, a pediatric nurse is paid more than $100,000 a year.
• High demand: The job market for nurse practitioners is predicted to grow by up to 28% by 2028. This makes it the perfect time to enter the field and gain the skill.

Cons of Pediatric Nursing

• Tragic outcomes can be overwhelming: If you are highly empathetic, you might find it especially hard to see children suffering or witness them dying. It might take a huge emotional toll.
• It requires years of study: You’ll need to study for years and get various certifications to be a pediatric nurse. And this can be expensive in the long run.
• You’ll be more exposed to more viruses: Children generally have weaker immune systems. They also exercise less care and are therefore more likely to experience more infections. By working with them, you’ll be constantly exposed to these pathogens.
• Some people tend to undervalue NPs: Some patients consider nurses as inferior practitioners to doctors. You might encounter extremes of this kind of attitude every so often.

Emergency room nursing

While all nurses play their part in helping people, emergency room nurses can often be the most critically needed of them. They work with emergency room doctors to treat, diagnose, and perform life-saving procedures on patients.

Your typical emergency room nurse should be able to not only provide primary care but also perform more dire procedures, such as acute resuscitation, while also managing more complex and unstable conditions presented by patients on the fly.

Due to the varying nature of emergency room cases, the nurse is expected to be able to manage chaos and maintain their composure as they provide care as required throughout the day and night.

At the same time, they should be able to make decisions at lightning speed, using only limited patient information.

Pros of Emergency Room Nursing

• It’s highly rewarding: As an emergency room nurse, you get to handle life-threatening situations and play an active role in saving lives. You also get to observe almost-instant improvements as a result of your actions.
• It provides an opportunity to learn: Almost all cases are different in the emergency room. You get a chance to gain new skills each day dealing with all the different injuries and illnesses.
• It’s high in demand: Due to the decreasing number of emergency room doctors and increasing emergency room patient visits, there is a constant need for more emergency room nurses.

Cons of Emergency Room Nursing

• It’s extremely fast-paced: The emergency room is almost always hectic. There is a constant influx of tragic and violent traumas which need to be diagnosed and treated quickly. As such, the specialty is only recommended if you can keep up.
• It’s physically and emotionally draining: Handling all the especially tough and unfamiliar cases can be stressful for an ER nurse. You get presented with untreatable cases, and witness patient deaths regularly. At the same time, a large portion of your shift will see you moving around and standing on your feet, which is physically draining.

Join the Brooks Rehabilitation Team

As you’ve seen, there’s almost no limit to the number of nursing jobs out there. And they are all rewarding in their own right. Rehabilitation nursing, in particular, can be an excellent option for you if you appreciate a well-paced, interactive, and fulfilling nursing career.

However, if you want to truly grow and advance your career, you must attach yourself to an institution that will foster your skills and help you grow. At Brooks Rehabilitation, our doors are open to nurses looking to advance their careers in rehabilitation nursing.

We strive to equip all our employees with the skills to provide quality care for our patients and make a genuine difference in their lives. We also have executive leaders and supporting managers on board to help our nurses grow within their specific roles and advance their careers.

Ready to be a part of our family? Submit your resume today!