How Nurses Choose a Specialty — and Why That Decision Shapes Their Entire Career

To people working outside of healthcare, it can be very easy to underestimate exactly what a nurse does. Yes, they're the people you see the most when you're in a hospital. You probably have relied on them in the past. Hopefully you respect them immensely, but did you know that they do so much more than work on a hospital floor or in an emergency room?

In fact, there are many dozens of different specialties available. Not only can specializing radically change the sort of responsibilities that a nurse has to perform, but it can also influence how often they work, how much money they make, where they work, and so on.

In this article, we take a look at how specializing can completely change a nurse's career.

How Do Nurses Specialize?

Most nurses begin their careers with a BSN. To achieve this credential the traditional way, you begin as a college freshman, take four years of classes, immerse yourself in clinical rotations, and then graduate.

Once you've done all that, you then have to take a standardized exam known as the NCLEX. Assuming you pass, you can work as a registered nurse in your state.

The specialization process happens a little later. Typically, nurses will wait until they've figured out what aspects of the job they love, simply so that they can choose a specialization that connects them with the kind of work that they most enjoy doing.

For example, you can specialize in education roles, forensic nursing, transportation nursing, or travel nursing.

There are literally dozens of different specializations available. Achieving the credential that makes this possible is time-consuming, but more user-friendly than most graduate programs.

How It Works

The specialization process will vary slightly based on the credential. That said, it generally begins with a job application. Once you've decided what specialized role you'd like to pursue, you can start looking for openings near you.

Why? Because virtually any specialization requires several hundred hours of clinical experience before you can be certified.

Because no one could fulfill this requirement in their spare time, most employers are more than happy to hire a licensed BSN and help them complete the credentialing process under supervision.

This typically takes approximately two to three years of shadowing a fully certified nurse. During this time, you're effectively performing the duties of the job, but you may have less autonomy and fewer responsibilities until you've become fully certified.

In many cases, you'll also make a little less money. While you get your clinical hours, you may also need to take the occasional test or attend a few online lectures. It's not easy, but it's also attainable for anyone who is capable of passing nursing school.

Why Specializing Is Important

From a healthcare perspective, there are several reasons why specializations are important. These include: • Specializations ensure patient access to high-quality care. A specialist is typically going to be better equipped to meet the needs of their patients than a generalist. The more specialized a hospital system's talent pool is, the more resources they'll be able to provide to their patients. • Nursing specialists eliminate bottlenecks. It's also true that highly qualified nurses help speed up the healthcare process by lessening the burden placed on doctors.

To put it succinctly, healthcare systems need good specialists. However, it's not just patients and hospitals that benefit from specialization. It's also an incredibly impactful resource for the nurses themselves.

Why Specialization Is Good for Nurses

It's no secret that nursing has a major retention problem. Many people get burnt out by the day-to-day grind.

Not only is it hard work, but it's emotionally draining. And once disconnect begins to set in, it can be really difficult to reignite your passion for the profession.

For many nurses, specialization is an answer to that problem. It allows them to reorient their focus on the elements of the work that they find most enjoyable. It also contributes considerably to improving freedom and flexibility. RNs are only approved to do a limited range of things. Often those responsibilities become more expansive as they deepen their credentials.

Keep in mind that there are few indicators that predict employment churn fairly consistently. These include: • Autonomy: people want to be able to make their own choices. • Compensation: not necessarily as big of a concern as many people might assume, but still something that can influence whether or not a person will stick with their career for the long haul. Nurses actually do make good money, but relative to their responsibilities, the value equation doesn't always make sense for everyone. There are easier ways to earn an upper five-figure salary.

Specialization or advanced certification addresses at least most of these concerns. Not every specialization will correlate with more money, though many do. And nurses interested in advanced practice roles, including becoming an FNP, can often double their salaries.

More to the point, specializations let nurses do the work they enjoy the most. Too many people leave healthcare before they've fully explored the opportunities available to them. There are so many different ways to work as a nurse.

If you're interested in a career in healthcare, take a look at the many dozens of different specializations available to nurses. You may be amazed by some of the opportunities that are out there.