Career Opportunities with a Degree in... Nursing

Your Skills and the Employment Market

Possible Career Opportunities

Further Study Opportunities

What Past Graduates Have Done

Resources in the Careers Information Room

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Your skills and the employment market

Having invested four years of your time gaining a professional qualification and a degree, you can now look forward to many years building a career that is worthwhile and well rewarded. Health care in the world is changing and new roles and new work settings are emerging, providing nurses with new challenges and career opportunities. “Nurses must take control of their career and futures in their quest for self-determination as professionals. Career-resilience is about flexibility and adaptability, something nurses understand” (Donner & Wheller 2001)

Prospective employers will be interested in your personal skills and abilities. Remember that apart from the professional and technical skills you have gained from a vocational degree such as yours, you will also have gained personal communication skills (both written and oral), analytical and problem-solving skills as well as caring skills. You will have used all these in a wide variety of care settings – hospitals, people’s homes, and the community, with people of all age groups, cultures and ethnic origin. So you are already, adaptable and flexible.

The International Council of Nurses (2001) provides career guidance to the profession in a document entitled, It’s Your Career – Take Charge: Career Planning and Development. This document is a training package that provides nurses with an overview of career planning and development and suggests a five-phase career planning and development model. The model includes advice on creating a vision, developing your career plan and marketing yourself. See International Council of Nurses Website, http://www.icn.ch/ for more details.

The National Council for the Professional Development of Nursing and Midwifery in Ireland has introduced a document entitled Guidelines for Portfolio Development for Nurses and Midwives. The document will be of assistance to you in identifying, reflecting upon and recording the contribution you make to direct and indirect care. It will also help and encourage you to store records of formal and informal development in a coherent and structured manner and provide guidance and information on achieving your individual professional goals. See the National Council Website for further details, http://www.ncnm.ie/

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Possible Career Opportunities

Upon successful completion of the Bachelor of Nursing Science degree you must register with An Bord Altranais. You can then explore the career options available.  Nursing is a career offering wonderful opportunities and challenges. As a nursing graduate a wide range of employment opportunities will be available to you. Within hospitals there is a range of nursing posts available in general and specialist areas, management and education. New nursing roles are emerging all the time, from clinical nurse specialist, advanced practitioner, family nurse, nurse practitioner, telenursing, etc. There is also a world wide nursing shortage which, according to the ICN is at crisis level.

Nurses work in a range of settings all over the world, for example:

• Hospitals and communities
• The Department of Health and Children
• An Bord Altranais
• Health Insurance Agencies
• The International Council of Nurses
• The United Nations
• The World Health Organization
• Voluntary agencies such as Goal and Trocaire
• Health Promotion
• Medical representatives
• Occupational Health nurses in Industry
• Public Health Nurses
• Palliative Care nurses in hospices and community
• GP practices
• Universities
• Unions and Professional Organizations

Note: Further qualifications may be needed for certain positions. This list is a sample of the areas where nurses work.  

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Further study opportunities

For certain career choices, employers may look for candidates with further qualifications and training. Information on post-registration courses available in Ireland can be obtained from the Nursing Careers Centre, An Bord Altranais, 31-32 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin 2 or at: http://www.nursingcareers.ie/

Some of the range of opportunities available in the Centre for Nursing Studies, NUI, Galway, include:

• Higher Diploma in Midwifery
• Higher Diploma in Nursing Studies (Intensive Care)
• Higher Diploma in Nursing Studies (Perioperative)
• Higher Diploma in Nursing Studies (Accident and Emergency)
• Higher Diploma in Nursing Studies (Gerontology)
• Higher Diploma in Nursing Studies (Oncology)
• Higher Diploma in Nursing Studies (Palliative Care)
• Higher Diploma in Nursing Studies (Public Health Nursing)
• Higher Diploma in Nursing Studies (Orthopaedic Nursing)
• Higher Diploma in Nursing Studies (Mental Health)
• Master of Health Sciences

For a full list please visit www.nuigalway.ie/courses .

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For those who wish to study something outside Nursing, there is a vast range of Conversion Courses available throughout Ireland.  In most cases, all you need is a degree.  Some of these available in NUI, Galway include:

• Higher Diploma in Business Studies
• Higher Diploma Occupational Health & Hygiene
• Higher Diploma / MA Health Promotion
• Bachelor of Laws (LLB)

Further study links:

http://www.postgradireland.com/ contains useful information on postgraduate courses in Ireland

http://www.prospects.ac.uk/ is an excellent site for researching opportunities in the UK

http://ec.europa.eu/ploteus covers the EU

Other occupational areas that may interest Nursing graduate could include – more information from Career Development Centre:

• Physiotherapy
• Speech & Language Therapy
• Health & Safety
• Dietetics
• Psychology

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What past graduates have done

It is always interesting to know what fellow graduates have done after obtaining their degree at NUI, Galway.  Here is a sample of first destinations of past students who studied Nursing. 

• Nursing home in Ennis
• St. Lukes, Dublin
• St. James' Hospital, Dublin
• HDip in Applied Science (Occupational Health & Hygiene), NUIG
• HDip Psychology, NUIG

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Resources in the Careers Information Room

 We have valuable information resources, experienced career development advisers and information staff on hand to help you with your queries.

Reference material in the Information Room includes:

• Nursing: A Career for You
• Reference Folders:
  • C6: Nursing
  • C4: Complementary Medicine

For useful links, see www.nuigalway.ie/careers/students/virtual 

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