Why Advancing Your Career Can Lead to Greater Impact in Patient Care

Nurses interact with thousands of patients throughout the course of a year. Over the span of a career, they could touch millions of lives—if not directly, then through the families and communities shaped by the healthcare systems that serve them.

But while working as an RN is noble work, it’s not always the highest-impact way to use your medical knowledge.

There are bigger and better applications made possible only through upskilling and continuous education. In this article, we take a look at why advancing your education is worthwhile if you want to improve the quality of care you are capable of providing.

What Continuous Education Opportunities Are We Recommending?

That’s a good question. In fact, we do not necessarily recommend any specific educational route, but rather recognize that everyone will respond differently to the opportunities available to them.

For example, you can technically maximize the impact of your skills by pivoting into admin work. While nurses make choices that impact individuals, administrators make decisions that shape entire communities. That being the case, the biggest way to enhance your influence would be to pivot into the strategic side of healthcare over direct patient care.

That’s not going to be a great fit for everyone. Many people get into nursing specifically because they want to work on the patient-facing side of things. Even so, there are still many certifications and graduate programs available to get you where you want to go.

Certification programs allow you to specialize in very specific medical niches. It’s technically more of a lateral move, though in some cases the pay will be higher. However, you’re still working on patient-side care, and you’re now filling gaps that often create significant bottlenecks within healthcare communities.

On the graduate side of things, many nurses who opt for upskilling or continuing education will go into advanced practice. While there are many forms this can take, the most common is becoming a nurse practitioner. Nurse practitioners can write prescriptions, diagnose patients, and advise on long-term health decisions at a much higher level.

All of these careers are both impactful and highly rewarding. It’s about finding the one that makes the most sense for you.

Are Advanced Practice Nurses Really more Impactful?

Interestingly, the scope of their work—at least in terms of patient volume—is often comparable to that of an RN. In some cases, a nurse practitioner may actually see fewer patients. Even so, the role they play within a healthcare system can produce greater impact for several reasons.

• The choices they make are bigger. While RNs execute and facilitate care, advanced practice nurses operate at a more strategic level. They may not see as many patients, but the influence they have on each patient is significantly greater. • Advanced practice nurses provide patients with more options. Functionally, they are similar to general practitioners. Increasing their numbers expands patient choice and improves confidence in the healthcare system. • Advanced practice nurses help eliminate bottlenecks. In a climate defined by ongoing healthcare shortages, nurse practitioners reduce delays by offering faster access to advanced levels of care. They require four to six years of training, compared to the roughly twelve years needed for a general practitioner, yet they can perform many comparable tasks.

Advanced practice nurses do many of the same things as RNs, but at a higher level. For many people, this makes the work more fulfilling and more sustainable over the long term.

While the career trajectory of a nurse who does not upskill can be modest, pursuing an advanced practice role allows you to nearly double your earnings and exponentially increase your impact.

How to Continue Your Education as a Nurse

You now understand the importance of upskilling or even pursuing graduate studies, but that doesn’t mean you have the time to do it.

Nurses work long, difficult shifts, and to make things even more complicated, their schedules are often erratic.

You might work weekends one month, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays the next, and so on. It’s very difficult to sign up for classes when your schedule could change every week.

Fortunately, graduate programs for nurses understand who their audience is. Most people pursuing an MSN are also working as nurses, and the programs are designed to be as flexible as possible.

An increasingly popular option is to pursue your graduate degree online in a flexible, pre-recorded format. This allows you to study when it’s convenient for you. You may still have clinical requirements, but sometimes these can even be satisfied at work while you’re on the job. The timeline might vary from three to five years depending on how aggressively you take classes, but it remains the most sustainable way to earn your degree without risking burnout.

Taking a more Accelerated Route

All of that said, you don’t necessarily need to go about your degree completion slowly. If you’re ready for advanced practice work now and feel discouraged by a five- to seven-year timeline, there are accelerated options that can reduce the training period to one to two years.

Accelerated education routes are the best way to upskill quickly, but it’s important to keep in mind that they generally require you to shift your personal responsibilities at least somewhat.

It’s hard to work a full-time job and essentially function as a full-time student at the same time.

Conclusion

There are many different ways to upskill or continue your nursing education. The key is to find the one that makes the most sense for you.

It’s not about getting there as quickly as you can, but rather doing it in a way that is sustainable.

You want to complete your education without risking your physical or mental health, and yes, there is a certain physical risk to stress that warrants your consideration. As a nurse, you already know that.

While there is value in pushing yourself, it’s best for you—and for the healthcare community you serve—to find a route that encourages completion over anything else.