Nursing Careers & Specialties

These are just a few popular nursing careers focused on care for patients with specific needs or illnesses.

• Acute Care Nursing. This specialty focuses on providing advanced care to patients suffering brief but severe illnesses in emergency rooms and other short-term facilities.
   
• Infectious Disease Nursing. You will provide care to patients with illnesses like Hepatitis C and HIV-AIDS. You can also get involved in fighting the spread of infectious disease as a policy-maker, administrator, educator or researcher.
   
• Oncology Nursing. This type of nurse cares for adults or children who are chronically or critically ill with cancer. You may administer chemotherapy, provide education and support to patients' families, or provide other care to help patients fight their disease.
   
• Psychiatric Nursing. You will provide care to people suffering from mental illnesses. Helping patients overcome the symptoms and stigma of psychiatric disorders can be challenging but hugely rewarding.
   
• Cardiovascular Nursing. By focusing your nursing career on heart disease, your work will include patient assessment, monitoring, education and postoperative care, as well as helping patients make healthier lifestyle choices.
   
• Rehabilitation Nursing. Rehabilitation nursing focuses on helping people recover from serious injury, surgery, or disease. In this specialty, you will help patients of all ages return to active, independent lives.
   
• Geriatric Nursing. Because of longer life spans, the elderly population is growing faster than ever before. There is a need for geriatric nurses to care for older patients who suffer from diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and emphysema.

The following nursing careers are some of your options if you want to spend most of your time working with infants, children, and their families.

• Neonatal Nursing. Neonatal nurses work with newborn infants and have increasingly advanced training, depending on whether you want to work with healthy infants or seriously ill babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.
   
• Pediatric Nursing. From well-child exams and immunizations to serious illness, pediatric nurses and nurse practitioners work with children and adolescents in a wide range of settings from hospitals to doctor's offices.
   
• Perinatal Nursing. This nursing career focuses on helping women during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period.
   
• Parent-Child Nursing. You'll provide education and support to help families during transitional phases of childrearing. An example of the parent-child nurse role includes helping new parents adjust to the birth of a child.

Some nursing careers take you out of the hospital and into the community. You could care for patients in their homes, work for a business, or be of service in a religious community.

• Home Health Nursing. You'll visit patients in their homes and help them with whatever they need, from medication management to bathing. Most of your patients will be elderly or disabled, but you may also help people who are recovering from accidents or suffering from serious illnesses.
   
• Occupational Health Nursing. Occupational health nurses promote health and safety practices in the workplace. They may work as clinicians, educators, corporate directors or consultants.
   
• Legal Nurse Consulting. Legal nurses often work as independent consultants and help legal professionals understand complex medical issues and develop effective strategies.
   
• School Nursing. School nurses help optimize student wellness, both mental and physical, as well as academic success. They also collaborate with faculty and parents on school and community-based health and safety programs.
   
• Parish Nursing. Parish nurses promote health, disease prevention and wellness within a particular religious community. They provide health counseling to faith community members and address health-related issues, organize support groups, and coordinate other holistic health programs.
   
• Public Health Nursing. Public health nurses work with communities through community education programs to identify and correct health issues and safety hazards such as substance abuse and infectious disease.

Here are a few more of the almost infinite nursing careers and specialty options you may choose to pursue.

• Adult Nursing
• Women's Health Nursing
• Forensic Nursing
• Nurse Educating
• Nurse Case Manager
• Nursing Informatics Specialist