This week’s foray into the world of STEM professionals brings us to nurses, those born with an immense multitasking skill-set, patience to kill for and patients to save.
Nurses are the medical professionals that you are most likely to see in hospitals, taking the flak from ailing humans often reluctant to accept the sound advice on offer.
Spending years at college before being thrown in at the deep end in hospitals far and wide, nurses work long hours and, in comparison to a doctor’s daily tasks, undertake a mountain of work.
They are the face of healthcare, only truly appreciated when you see the stream of well-wishing cards sent in after patients get home and realise who it was that cared for them most.
What they do: The vast majority of your treatment and care during a hospital stay.
What they don’t do: Get enough credit.
Salary: Is there really a figure here that anyone would consider ‘enough’? During their placement, nurses earn little, increasing marginally throughout each of the stages.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation says that starting salaries for staff nurses are €27,000, scaled up annually towards €43,800. If you are qualified as both a nurse and a midwife you earn more, with seniority subsequently bringing the salary higher.
Educational requirements: An undergrad at nursing of course.
Here are a few memes that should garner a smile from nurses, and maybe patients too.
Main image of nurse via Shutterstock
