Charge Nurse
Career Area: Health Care including Nursing
Occupation Group: Nursing Management and Training
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Charge Nurse earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $66,932
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $74,552
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Supervises and supports a nursing staff, while also treating a limited number of patients. Evaluates other nurses and acts as an educational resource for nurses. Provides guidance on administering care to new patients or those with special needs and answers questions regarding protocol. Directs admission, discharge and general flow of patients.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Location | Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 322 | +10.8% |
| Nationwide | 21665 | +12.1% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Charge Nurse is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
- Planning: Working experience with the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve desired goals.
- Critical Thinking: Experience objectively examining assumptions (adopted rules of thumb) underlying current beliefs to assess their correctness and legitimacy, and thus to validate or invalidate business beliefs.
- Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Patient Care: The services rendered by members of the health profession and non-professionals under their supervision for the benefit of the patient.
- Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS): Advanced cardiac life support or advanced cardiovascular life support (ACLS) refers to a set of clinical interventions for the urgent treatment of cardiac arrest, stroke and other life-threatening medical emergencies, as well as the knowledge and skills to deploy those interventions.
- Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR): Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure that combines chest compressions often with artificial ventilation in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spontaneous blood circulation and breathing in a person who is in cardiac arrest.
- Staff Management: Working experience with the management of subordinates in an organization.
- Life Support: Life support refers to the treatments and techniques performed in an emergency in order to support life after the failure of one or more vital organs.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Charge Nurse that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- Interaction with Patients / Medical Personnel:
- Surgery: Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, to help improve bodily function or appearance or to repair unwanted ruptured areas (for example, a perforated ear drum).
- Hemodialysis: Hemodialysis, also spelled haemodialysis, commonly called kidney dialysis or simply dialysis, is a process of purifying the blood of a person whose kidneys are not working normally.
- Caregiving: A caregiver or carer is an unpaid or paid member of a person's social network who helps them with activities of daily living.
- Patient Evaluation: In clinical medicine, assessment of the patient for the purposes of forming a diagnosis and plan of treatment.
Salary Boosting Skills
A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills:
- Behavioral Health: Mental health is a level of psychological well-being, or an absence of mental illness.
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 79% |
| 3 to 5 years | 21% |
| 6 to 8 years | 0% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- Charge Nurse
- Registered Nurse Charge Nurse
- Charge Nurse Registered Nurse
- Charge Registered Nurse
- Charge Registered Nurse II
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