Category · 100 posts
Get accepted. Get prepared. Get to your first NCLEX.
TEAS, HESI, and the long climb into nursing school.
Yes, hospitals hire new graduate RNs — mostly through nurse residency programs built for exactly that. You can start applying before your NCLEX results arrive, and in some states an interim permit lets you work under supervision while you wait. Here is the timing, the on-ramp, and how to beat the experience paradox.
An LPN to BSN bridge grants credit for the licence you already hold, so you skip a full four-year start. This guide compares it honestly against the LPN-to-ADN route, explains what credit actually transfers, and grounds the pay case in BLS wage data rather than a university's marketing page.
Conditionally, yes. Nursing is a good career if you want durable demand and a credential that leads somewhere beyond the bedside. It is a poor one if you need predictable hours or physically light work. Both sides here are sourced to BLS and NCSBN — including the 39.9% of RNs who report an intent to leave.
LPN to RN bridge programs grant advanced standing for the training you already hold, which shortens the coursework. What they cannot shorten is the change in scope: an RN creates and revises the plan of care rather than carrying one out, and the NCLEX-RN is written to test exactly that shift.
A home health nurse delivers skilled nursing care in the patient's own residence — assessment, medications, wound care and teaching — with no charge nurse down the hall. Medicare requires an RN to complete the comprehensive OASIS assessment, which is why the autonomy and the paperwork are the same fact.
Most nursing specialties are defined by a patient population. Infusion nursing is defined by a procedure — vascular access and the safe delivery of fluids, medications and blood products. An infusion nurse might place a line for a neonate in the morning and run chemotherapy for an older adult that afternoon.
A Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist is an advanced practice registered nurse who administers anesthesia and monitors patients before, during and after surgery. It is the highest-paid nursing specialty, and the path runs BSN, RN licensure, at least a year of critical care, then a doctoral program.
The highest paid nursing jobs are the advanced-practice roles, where BLS reports a combined median of $132,050 against $93,600 for registered nurses. But BLS groups nurse anesthetists, midwives and practitioners into one occupation — which is exactly why the $200k CRNA figures circulating online mislead.
The CCRN is AACN's credential for nurses caring directly for acutely or critically ill patients, and eligibility is gated on documented clinical practice hours in a defined patient population — not on how much you have studied. Check your hours, and which exam variant matches your unit, before you book.
The CCRN (Adult) first-time pass rate was 72.02% in 2025, down from 81.20% in 2023. AACN sets the standard as a raw cut score — 83 of 125 scored items — not a percentage. Here is the data by track, what that cut score actually asks of you, and how to plan for the field as it is now.
A paid CCRN review course earns its price in three situations: you are not currently practising in the population you are certifying in, a practice test shows gaps across three or more blueprint areas, or you have already failed once. Otherwise, start with AACN's free exam bibliography and sample questions.
The "AANP exam" is administered by NPCB — legally the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Certification Board. It covers four certifications: FNP, AGNP, PMHNP and ENP. The FNP exam is 150 multiple-choice questions with 135 scored items, and Diagnosis plus Planning alone carry 53% of the clinical domain.