5 High-Paying Careers in the Nursing Field

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Highest-Paying Nursing Jobs Today: 5 Top Options

  • Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist
  • General Nurse Practitioner
  • Gerontological Nurse Practitioner
  • Pain Management Nurse
  • Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
Today’s nursing industry offers a wide range of great and often high-paying jobs to choose from. For those interested in specifically achieving the highest pay rates in this field, this list will provide a great resource. The following five nursing jobs represent some of the highest-paid options in the entire industry.

1. Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist

Certified registered nurse anesthetists are some of the absolute highest-paid nursing professionals out there. This is because of the additional responsibilities and risks associated with their duties. These  include preparing and administering anesthesia for surgical procedures. These nurses are capable of handling all typical nursing responsibilities. They also work with surgeons and many types of specialist doctors where other nurses cannot.

2. Family Nurse Practitioner

A family nurse practitioner is a nurse who holds a high level of nursing responsibilities. This includes including the ability to maintain patient prescriptions. These nurses also represent the upper end of the highest-paying nursing jobs. However, they typically make slightly less than the above-mentioned certified registered nurse anesthetist. These particular nurses also work in a wide variety of locations including:
  • hospitals
  • hospices
  • clinics
  • specialist offices
  • urgent care centers and numerous others.

3. Gerontological Nurse Practitioner

Gerontology is described as the scientific study of aging. It’s the study of the changes, over time that take place in:
  • a cell
  • a tissue
  • an organ system
  • a total organism
  • a group of organisms
Medically, this natural aging process presents a whole focus area unto itself for:
  • doctors
  • nurses
  • other healthcare professionals
Gerontological nurse practitioners are specialized nurses who work with this particular patient group.

4. Pain Management Nurse

Pain management is a sizable part of the healthcare industry. Healthcare professionals manage pain-abating procedures and medications in patients suffering from chronic pain. The pain management nurse helps oversee a pain management program for one or even many  patients as part of their job. Typically, pain management is administered to adults, but sometimes children and teens need these services, too.

5. Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner

Finally, psychiatric nurse practitioners also come in the top five highest-paid nursing roles in the industry. These specialized nurses focus more on tending to the psychiatric needs of patients than physiological needs. Among their duties this professional:
  • develops a nursing diagnosis and plan of care
  • implements the nursing process
  • evaluates it for effectiveness.
Nursing makes up a large area of the greater healthcare industry today. Due to this wide breadth of practice and the complexity of human health , there are many, types of nurses in practice. For those in search of the very best-paying jobs in the nursing field, these five roles represent those upper-earning positions.

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Brenda Rufener
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