Advancement Opportunities for Nurses Holding an MSN

Earning your Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) can have a major impact on your career. Not only will an MSN make you eligible for advancement opportunities in the health care field, but this degree is also highly flexible for the already busy nurse. With an MSN degree, you can take your career down a variety of exciting new pathways, including the following advancement opportunities for nurses:

Become a Leader as a Nurse Manager

For those nurses with a passion for communication, who possess both listening skills and big-picture thinking, becoming a Nurse Manager could be the right title upgrade. Nurse managers help patients by overseeing the nurses who care for them. If you like the pace of working closely with your peers and patients; if you want to continue administering clinical care and supervising health plans, yet also possess the makings of a great leader, you should consider the nurse manager role. Nurse management allows you to stay in the environment that makes you happy, but also assume more responsibilities and higher salary potential.

To qualify for this in-demand role, it is recommended that you hold an MSN degree. Coursework from Goodwin College’s MSN program offers what you need to know about leadership in the nursing field. With graduate nursing courses like “Leadership Practices in Organizational Communications” and “Pathophysiology for Advanced Nursing Practice,” you will become prepared to lead an entire nursing staff. You’ll also gain the knowledge to back up your ideas and earn the respect of your fellow nurses.

Inspire Other RNs as a Nurse Educator

Some nurses just have a special spark that helps them to inspire others. Maybe you’re remembering your favorite teacher from an undergraduate nursing program. Have you considered that this figure could, in the future, be you for other nurses? Becoming a nurse educator – in other words, helping aspiring RNs become the best nurses they can be – is one direction you can take with your MSN degree. The nurse educator job description includes lecturing, curriculum planning, and teaching undergraduate or graduate students, as well as overseeing labs, acting as a mentor, and facilitating discussions. With a Master’s in Nursing, you can take your knowledge off the clinical floor and bring it into the classroom to help other aspiring healthcare professionals!

Create a Foundation for Further Education

The stepping stones to a Doctorate or Ph.D. begin with a master’s degree program. If you are dedicated to furthering your education, do yourself a favor and try to think long-term. Becoming a nurse practitioner, a midwife, a nurse anesthetist, or a variety of other advanced specialties in nursing, requires a superior degree of learning – starting right where you are now.

Make an Impact on Your Field

At Goodwin College, the MSN degree program focuses on population health and managed care. Did you know that population health is the most rapidly expanding sector of healthcare? This field combines science and community planning initiatives that, prior to the early 2000s, were not traditionally considered to be part of “healthcare” at all. However, because of increasing life expectancies and the rise of long-term managed care, as well as shifting economic and social service systems, there is a need for more, well-educated population health professionals.

According to Monster.com, one of the top job-hunt resources, working in population health could include a variety of roles, such as a patient advocate, care coordinator, analyst, and many more. If crunching data and working collaboratively are some of your skills, population health nursing could be the field for you – You can innovate and challenge yourself, your team, and provide better solutions for your patients.

Keep Your Institution on Track as a Nurse Administrator

Nurse administrators have an important role in the health care and population health fields, by acting behind-the-scenes and maintaining organizational management. These professionals hire and manage new nurses, liaise between departments and other hospitals or facilities, manage budgets, acquire equipment, and conceive of and apply new policies. Nurse administrators help to “steer the ship” and, in this way, have an enormous impact on their institutions and the healthcare field as a whole. Maybe you want to place yourself at the helm, as a nurse administrator!

Generate Higher Earning Potential

Whether you decide to become a nurse leader, educator, or administrator, or if you continue your education with further specializations in mind, you will position yourself for higher earning potential, earning more than the average registered nurse. The numbers speak for themselves: Nurse Journal reports that BSN degree holders earn between $42,343 and $81,768 annually, while MSN degree holders make between $62,281 and $195,743, depending on the career path they choose.

In the end, it’s all fun and well to dream, but most important to remember that these advanced roles are primarily available to those nurses who possess an advanced master’s degree. The good news is, you don’t have to put your life on hold to pursue a master’s level education. Goodwin’s Master’s in Nursing program is built for busy nurses who are already working full-time. With a 20-month investment in part-time, fully-online MSN coursework, you could be well on your way to approaching these advancement opportunities for nurses with confidence and excitement.

To learn more about Goodwin College’s flexible MSN program, simply give us a call at 800-889-3282, or visit us online to request more information.