A hundred years ago nurses did not always happen into the profession by choice.  The book of medicine as we follow it shows us that 90 years ago, it was expected that most mothers would perform the nursing functions for their entire family. They were expected to have a rudimentary understanding of how to care for their family if they became ill or injured and to care for them long enough until a doctor could arrive.

Professional nurses, did not always enter into the career by choice.  Treated as much as a servant almost as opposed to a medical professional or care giver.

Today, things have changed dramatically.  Nurses often find themselves in very lucrative and respectable careers.  The times have changed a great deal and its no longer uncommon for men to take up careers as nurses.  There are many types of degrees and even more importantly specialties that nurses can track into within school.

With all of the specialties available from nursing anesthesiologists, to nurse mid-wives that can prescribe medicine, to LPN's and RPN's and much more, its very important for people considering a future in nursing to look closely at themselves and determine not only if nursing is a good fit, but why nursing might be a good fit and then what area of nursing to study and pursue for a career.

There is a huge demand for nurses all across the country.  Pay scales for different specialties in nursing vary widely.  If money is important its important to understand that the difference in starting pay for nurses with specialties can be as wide as $120,000 per year (that's the amount of the difference between starting salaries of $150,000 per year versus $30,000 per year!).  Choosing the right path for financial reasons can definitely be important up front.

If the degree of responsibility is important, or if a certain degree of autonomy is desirable then its important to consider certain specialties that might provide the right fit for these types of personalities that are predisposed to responsibility and autonomy.

Then if you are looking to ask yourself where to start, its also important to consider what learning environments work for you and how you learn certain subjects in those environments.  As an example, I can study history online easily, but I took a statistics course online once and was miserably lost for several weeks.  I had to repeat the course in a real class and it was much easier.  I went on to get my master's online and soon realized that some classes require hands on instruction in a classroom and some are best suited for online study.  The subject matter comes into play, the professor's styles and organization levels come into play and much more.  Online learning can be a massive relief for people that have inflexible schedules, but it does not mean that you will spend less time working. 

This is a highly demanding career path both physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Some people are naturals and some people are not naturals at all but through perseverance and very hard work become extremely capable and skilled.  You have to ask yourself if this is a fit for you, why its a fit, how its a fit, what you can do to be successful in nursing and what you will need to do to be successful in obtaining your nursing degrees and certifications.

Good luck, based on my own studies online and through my examination of this book, I can tell you that learning to be nurse today is much easier, much more rewarding, and at the same time much more challenging and possibly more dynamic!

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• Coagulation of the Blood
  
  

  Coagulation of the Blood. –according to Dr. Draper, of New York, 20,000,000 die at a single breath! Blood when exposed to the air coagulates, and the value of this peculiar yet intrinsic property cannot be overestimated. Win and archery is ruptured bleeding takes place, the blood coagulates and forms a plug, thus preventing further hemorrhage.thus we observe with what divine foresight and wisdom, not only the wants of the body are provided for, but also the incidents to which it is liable.

  At the beginning of this topic I started to assume that the author was referring to the death of blood cells in the number of 20 million as opposed to people or something else. Even the book with a section heading it sounds a little sensational. The description of coagulation wasn’t too bad and it made sense and then the author seemed to lose his scientific perspective again and started talking about the divine and basically spouting some relative nonsense which again makes me do believe that the author had reached the extent of his knowledge. I think he was just basically filling in the text with more words. If I didn’t know better I would suspect the author was being paid by the word and basically was just paid three times over what that information was worth.

  Actually, come to think of it, I do not know better. I have done some external research to attempt to identify the bonafides of the author and the editors, but have so far come up short in that department. I couldn’t verify their credentials as medical professionals any more than I could say that they were masons that specialized in the construction of outdoor fireplace settings.

• Medicine News
  
  

  
  

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• Fleas
  
  

  Fleas.—There are one hundred varieties of this pest which live on dogs, cats, birds, squirrels, rats, mice, etc. It has been proven that fleas carry the germs of Bubonic Plague, which has caused as high as 113 deaths in 119 cases during an epidemic. The disease was found to be spread by means of rats, mice and squirrels of all species and the flea (pulen fasciatus) in the fur of the animals was the medium by which the disease was conveyed to human beings by biting them and injecting the germs of Plague into their blood.

  The forms which pester the American homes are the Rouse Flea (Pulen Irritans), the Cat Flea (Pulen Felinius), and the Dog Flea (Pulen Canis).
  

  While we have made major advances in the treatment and prevention of fleas, the speed of their prevention as not advanced along a path like Moore’s Law where we see advances in computer chips and flash memory doubling on a regular basis.

  Each female flea deposits from eight to twelve whitish ovoid eggs in dust or lint, under carpets and the larger crevices of wood­work. In the summer they develop in about four weeks from the egg to the adult flea, in winter they develop in about six weeks. Four to six broods, as a rule are hatched out during each summer.

  The House Flea occurs in dwellings, breeding in bedding, clothing, carpets, window curtains, etc. They attack their victims at night. The Cat and Dog Flea, though they annoy only their respective victims, are as troublesome to human beings as the human flea.