Five Skills That a Nursing Career Can Teach

There are many different ways that people’s careers can benefit them throughout their everyday lives. People who work in retail or in customer service often are better at social skills and pleasing people than people who work in other careers. People who work in the culinary industry often know more about cooking techniques for making delicious dinners than other people do.

And finally, people who work in nursing jobs often have a few skills under their belts that most other people will not learn over the course of their lives. These are five of the most beneficial skills that a career in nursing can teach.

1. Communication Skills

One thing that a lot of people do not realize is that communication is the crux of becoming a nurse that everyone loves and looks up to. Communication affects all aspects of nursing, ranging from informing doctors and other staff about a situation to speaking with a hysterical family or patient. Even if a person goes into a nursing career without strong communication skills, that person will quickly develop those communication skills through becoming an experienced nurse.

Some of the areas where these communication skills really shine through include speaking to people who are highly emotional, such as patients and family, speaking to doctors and other authority figures with respect while still defining boundaries, and being able to quickly relay critical information in a high-pressure situation.

2. Technical Skills

While nursing didn’t used to involve a lot of technology, advancements have been made in enough places that technology has become commonplace in the nursing industry. As such, people who want to become nurses will quickly develop the skills needed to become technologically proficient. A lot of the places where nurses work with technology can translate into everyday tasks that people don’t give a lot of thought to.

Examples of this include nurses being able to quickly look up specific items from a list, such as looking for medicine or patient names, being able to calculate dosages and equations without a calculator, and the ability to type more quickly than other people, especially in regards to data entry.

3. Being Quick to React

It goes without saying that working in medicine, even as a nurse, can be a high-pressure situation. When medical emergencies happen, there isn’t any time to panic, worry, or nurse one’s emotions. Instead, nurses will quickly learn how to react to a situation immediately and with a clear head, which is a skill that is valued all across the world and in countless different fields.

Even if a nurse moves onto a job that doesn’t involve working with health, the skill of being quick to react to tense situations with a clear head is going to benefit that person for the rest of their life.

4. Patience

When treating patients as part of nursing jobs, nurses often will develop the skill of patience. When treating people who have health conditions that are time-sensitive, it would make sense that the patients would be impatient, worried, and even frantic. Families can easily become frantic depending on the situation. During these times, nurses will develop the skills needed to become incredibly patient at handling these tense situations.

Another instance where nurses develop their patience is when handling patience physically. These can include trying to insert IVs and central lines, administer medicine to troublesome patients, clean bandages, and even change catheters. These are all situations that require patience and delicate handling, as rushing will cause more problems for everyone involved. More often than not, nurses will walk away with far more patience than most other people will have.

5. Being Assertive

Arguably one of the most important things that a person can learn with a job in nursing is the fact that they will have to learn how to assert themselves in a way that does not make them antagonistic, but instead commands respect and defines boundaries. There are numerous instances where being assertive comes into play, and the best part about it is that there are different dynamics in which assertiveness will be used, meaning that nurses will be better able to communicate with the people around them.

The two main areas of this are going to be being assertive when it comes to patient care and being assertive when it comes to working with worried and stressed family members. When people are in pain or require a nurse’s aid, there is a good chance that they will be impatient or otherwise defiant due to that pain or health condition.

As a nurse, people have to know how to put their foot down and get the patient to listen. Similarly, nurses also have to learn how to be assertive when trying to handle worried, stressed, and overbearing family members.

These are just a few of the different areas where nursing careers can help people develop skills that will benefit just about all other aspects of a person’s life.

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