Where Can an LVN Begin Looking For a Career?

A LVN or Licensed Vocational Nurse (also referred to as LPN or Licensed Practical Nurse) is the middle step between a certified nurses assistant (CNA) and a Registered Nurse (RN). If you decide you would like to become an LVN, there are many routes available to achieving your goal. By way of example, I will share with you three friends of mine who choose different paths and all achieved the same goal. (There are many health care jobs in my area)

Where an LVN can begin looking for a career, what their jobs entail:

My first friend worked as a cna in a nursing home for a year and decided that he enjoyed working in healthcare and wanted to make a career out of it. He did not want to invest in the time to become a nurse while living on cna pay so he talked to his supervisor at the nursing home. Now he is attending night school two nights a week plus clinicals, for two years (no semester breaks in the summer) on full scholarship the only catch is that he had to sign a contract to keep working at the nursing home for a year after he became an LVN. However, the pay will be better when he graduates and he is satisfied with the situation. He is already training under other LVN’s at the nursing home and is pleased to discover that his job will be a big step up from CNA, he will still get plenty of interaction with patients but will not have to do as much as the dirty work.

The second person has also worked as a cna; she works in home health care and enjoys the health field. She is interested in a higher pay that comes with LVN, but not the responsibilities of registered nursing. She is going full time at the vocational school in our town and will graduate within a year. She cut back her hours in home health care but has an offer from her boss that when she finishes school he will upgrade her to a better position. A Pell grant covers her expenses. She expects to be able to slightly cut back her hours and to have a traveling position as supervisor to the cna’s on shift, checking in sporadically to ensure they are doing their job and the patient has no complaints.

The third person is fresh from high school, she is eager to get to work in nursing but the waiting list for RN is over a year so she enrolled in a full time tract to LVN she will graduate in eighteen months and there is already talk of job placement in a local hospital. She plans on working as a LVN for a year or two to gain experience and then get back on the RN waiting list. Her schooling was paid, in part, by scholarship but mostly her parents. She hopes that she will get to work in Labor and Delivery when she graduates.

Entry level LVN positions are not too complicated to attain, typically the school you attend will help with job placement at local hospitals, nursing homes, Doctors offices, and home health care, a LVN is also qualified to work as a school nurse. LVN careers can be very fulfilling and the pay is great. Often becoming an LVN leads to Registered Nursing so what have you got to loose? Get out there!

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LVN Employment and Work

Contrary to popular belief, LVNs are employed in a variety of settings. Do not believe people who tell you that there is no job market for LVNs. Nothing could be further from the truth. You simply have to know where to look.

Since LVNs have less education than their RN counterparts, employers know that they can pay LVNs less than they would have to pay RNs. In same cases, such as trying to find employment, this can be a benefit to LVNs. This opens up a job market to LVNs that will remain untouched by RNs. Any agency or organization with a tight budget will be more likely to hire LVNs than they are to hire RNs.

School nursing is a popular field for LVNs. Being a school nurse allows LVNs to work with children, use their nursing skills, and hold a traditional Monday through Friday job. A regular schedule is a perk that many nurses want, but only a few are lucky enough to have. If you are interested in becoming a school nurse, contact your local school districts and inquire about LVN openings. Many school districts hire year-round because they are constantly understaffed.

Many LVNs that enjoy adrenaline work in corrections. LVNs are frequently found working in corrections because the budget for corrections tends to always go down, thereby making hiring RNs nearly impossible. Get in touch with your local Department of Corrections or the Federal Bureau of Prisons if you are interested in working in corrections as an LVN. They will likely send you off to their Human Resources department right away to fill out an application, since they are almost always in dire need of nurses.

A lot of LVNs work in long term care facilities and nursing homes. It is frequently said that it is the LVNs that run long term care facilities and nursing homes. This is because in many cases there is no RN on staff, making the LVN the most educated member of the nursing team on the shift. Many of these facilities are always understaffed and are always looking to hire new nurses. If you are interested in working for a long term care facility or nursing home, it is advised that you stop by the facility in person and speak with the Director or Nursing about possible job opportunities. These types of facilities are generally small enough that they do not do a lot of advertising, so you need to approach them from a proactive standpoint in order to gain employment with them.

Some hospitals, especially public county hospitals, still hire LVNs. Generally, these jobs are posted on their website, so if this is where you want to work, it is advised that you locate the hospital's website and apply online.

Lots of LVNs work in flu shot clinics during the fall and winter. These clinics are generally run by an agency and operate in a variety of stores and businesses. The reason that so many LVNs work at flu shot clinics is because many flu shot clinics will hire LVNs with little to no experience. If this is an option that you are considering, look online for jobs. These agencies tend to be so large that online is the only possible way to submit an application in many cases.

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LVN to RN Classes

There are several options available to you if you are a practicing LVN and want to become an RN. There are three major options: earning a BSN, becoming a diploma RN, or earning an ADN. A BSN, Bachelors of Science of Nursing, is a four year degree program that qualifies the student to sit for the NCLEX-RN upon completion of the program. LVN to BSN programs can be found at many state universities and also at some private universities. Most state universities have a variety of pre-requisite classes that must be completed before entrance into the BSN program. If you are interested in earning a BSN through your local state university, contact the university's admissions and advisement departments to discuss what is required to apply and be accepted in the BSN program, as these details will vary widely by university.

Private universities generally do not have as many pre-requisite classes required to enter their BSN programs. These programs are generally easier and faster to get into and provide a more accelerated degree program, though they do tend to cost quite a bit more than their public university counterparts. If you are interested in pursuing an LVN to BSN degree program at a private university, contact that university's admissions department to learn what they require to enter their program. University of Phoenix is a large, private university with several LVN to BSN programs available in California. Other private universities and colleges, such as Excelsior College, offer programs elsewhere.

Some LVNs do not wish to pursue a degree program and simply want the quickest route to becoming an RN. Earning a diploma is by far the fastest route to becoming an RN. Most diploma RN programs do not have any pre-requisites in place prior to admission. They are by far the fastest route to becoming an RN, as this option generally takes one year or less for an LVN to complete. However, they are also generally a very expensive option. If this is the route that you wish to pursue, contact your local vocational school and inquire about RN diploma program.s

ADN, Associate Degree in Nursing, programs are one of the most popular options for LVNs to become RNs. The popularly is likely due to the ease in finding an ADN program. Many community colleges operate ADN programs that allow LVNs to enter into the second year of the program if they have completed the necessary pre-requisite classes. The pre-requisite classes for LVNs to enter the ADN program are generally the same as it would be for freshmen students to enroll in the ADN program. Completion of the ADN program for an LVN is generally only two semesters, plus whatever time is required to complete the necessary pre-requisite classes. The pre-requisite classes vary by college, so contact your community college's admissions and advisement departments to inquire about the requirements to transfer into an ADN program as an LVN. This is a very common option, so your counselors should be quite familiar with the process that you will need to follow.

Regardless of the path that you choose to take, advancing your nursing skills by becoming an RN is one of the best ways to advance your career.

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Trends in LVN Salaries

LVN's (Licensed Vocational Nurses, also called LPN's or Licensed Practical Nurses) are nurses who are licensed by the state to provide routine patient care.

As is the case with all career fields, higher demand will lead to higher pay (and more job opportunities). There are certain areas in which LVN's are in high demand, and LVN salary in these areas is necessarily more lucrative. Right now the national average of LVN salaries is $49,000 (based on data from www.indeed.com, updated as of Sept. 28, 2009). This is low to average for other jobs with similar job titles such as RN, or LPN. To break that down more specifically, LVN salary for LVN's with less than a year of experience can expect to make between $25,560 and $42,630, while those with 10-19 years experience can make from $30,798 to 49,208 (www.payscale.com). The Travel Nurse (www.the-travel-nurse.com) indicates a lower national average for LVN salary, of about $33,210. Here it is demonstrated that there is fairly wide variances in LVN salary from state to state, with Alabama paying the lowest LVN salaries (at $26,660/year) and Massachusetts paying the highest LVN annual salary (at $41,180). As LVN's are also frequently paid hourly, instead of simply getting a yearly LVN salary, it is helpful to know that hourly those numbers are $12.82/hour in the state of Alabama, and $19.80 in the state of Massachusetts.

As with any career field, LVN salary will depend on a number of factors, including experience, demand, location, and employer needs and budgets. Currently, LVN's are most in demand in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, so LVN salaries will naturally be higher in these high demand positions. As LVN's have the opportunity to choose specialty career paths, an LVN interested in high LVN salaries might therefore choose to specialize in geriatrics, to make themselves even more competitive for these higher paying positions. Many doctor's offices also prefer LVN's over RN's, as LVN's can frequently perform many of the same tasks as an RN, but for a lower salary than an RN would expect to be paid.

While www.indeed.com shows LVN salary on a slightly downward trend, outlook for this career choice is actually quite good. It is expected that LVN's will become more in demand as health care advances lead to a higher level of living elderly population. An increasing number of jobs are expected to open for LVN's in the field of home health care as well, as health care advances increases the number of functional elderly who need in home assistance, particularly with complex medical equipment. This will be another area in which LVN salary is expected to increase in the future, as more demand is created for their services.

Clearly, the future of LVN's has a positive outlook. Providing similar services for lower LVN salaries than RN's are able to accept, while being experts in a growing field (that of geriatrics, home care, or long term nursing home care) will lead to lucrative opportunities in the medical field for LVN's. While LVN salary is not the highest compared to other nursing fields, that allows more flexibility for organizations, and actually creates more jobs for LVN's, while the increasing demand for people with their expertise indicates the future of the LVN salary is on the rise.

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