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5 Essential Skills You Need to Succeed as a Nursing Student: Nursing as a career is one of the most sought-after jobs in the US. This means you’ll never lack a job if you want to enter this profession!
Nursing is the largest single profession in the US, with almost three million working nurses.
A big reason for this is that it’s one of the more lucrative professions you can enter, with the options for building your salary almost limitless throughout your career.
Nursing also has great benefits – many people are surprised to find out that they can make even more money as a nurse than they could if they had another career. This salary range makes nursing one of the highest paying professions with long-term stability.
Learning Skills Through Education
Nursing education is one of the most difficult colleges to get into.
There are, however, lots of ways to get into nursing. For example, you may decide to take one of the many accelerated nursing programs online, or you may even decide to study in-person on-campus.
Nursing education is one of the most difficult colleges to get into. So, it’s not surprising that this career path has a lot of requirements when it comes to education and training.
The good news is that many people find out they are more capable than they thought they were and therefore start with less advanced positions before moving up to more advanced roles in larger companies or hospitals.
The requirements for new nurse students are high, but whatever course you choose, you’ll learn more than just the academic background of medicine. You’ll experience what it’s like to really improve your skills.
What are the most important skills needed to succeed in nursing?
Nursing has a list of core competencies that are essential to the role.
As you advance in your career, you will have to learn more about each of these skills and then demonstrate your proficiency in them for continued licensure.
For example, if you’re in nursing management, you will have to prove those communication skills on a regular basis. In order for someone to hire a nurse manager, they need to be sure that person can handle a team of nurses effectively.
Effective Communication
Perhaps one of the most important skills to learn as a professional nurse is communication, and for nurse students, this is a skill you’ll need to work on.
Before you can work on communicating effectively in the nurse role, though, it’s a good idea to work on your non-verbal skills.
That means learning how to stand tall, make eye contact and shake hands properly.
You don’t want to develop any old habits that might make people uncomfortable in your presence! If you are comfortable communicating well with others, you will find it much easier to learn other nursing skills.
For example, suppose you can communicate well with doctors, patients, and patient’s families. In that case, you will have no trouble communicating well with the other nurses and doctors in your hospital or clinic. This is because all communication relies on these basic core skills.
Handling Challenging Behaviors
Nurse students often find that they must learn to handle difficult situations since dealing with these health issues can require immediate action and leadership.
Patients who are in pain or scared can be difficult to handle.
You will find that you have to learn how to deal with several different situations. For example, you might have to deal with a very angry patient or patients who are scared and worried about the situation they’re in.
These patients may lash out at the medical team and refuse treatment, so nurses need to know how to deal with these challenges.
Treating difficult situations in this way takes strong leadership skills, which can be learned through experience and training.
Leadership Qualities
Leadership skills in nursing are important not only because they make you a more effective leader and you can help others to improve, but because employers also seek leadership skills.
One of the best ways to develop your leadership skills is through experience in the hospital unit.
That means that you should be willing to learn how to lead patients with these common health problems such as pain or depression. You’ll find that learning how to manage these difficult situations can require a lot of patience and professionalism.
You also may have to learn how to deal with angry patients who refuse treatment from nurses on your unit or those who become violent in their behavior and could pose a danger for themselves or for others in the unit.
Triage Skills
One of the key skills in nursing is the ability to make fast and effective decisions.
This can be especially challenging for new nurse students who aren’t sure about how to handle patients. There are so many things that nurses have to keep in mind when treating patients, and that’s why learning how to triage is so important.
Triage means making critical decisions, and you’re going to need to learn how to do this very quickly as a nurse student. That may sound like an impossible task at first, but it’s actually one of the easiest skills you can learn as a new nurse.
Critical Thinking
Another important skill to learn as a nurse is the ability to recognize when patients need extra attention.
This is where critical thinking comes into play. As a new nurse in training, it’s your job to analyze each patient and figure out what might be the best immediate solution.
Do you need a portable ventilator, or do you have time to start an IV? Will going to the ER be an issue, or can they wait until morning? It’s up to you, but making fast critical thinking decisions will help keep your patient safe and improve their health.
You’ll need to have the strength of character and trust in your own abilities as well as critical thinking in order to succeed in nursing and in nurse education