How to Move up to Nurse Management
If you want to find out the requirements for getting nursing management jobs, you can do no better than looking at actual nurse managers to see what sort of qualifications they hold. You will find that their experience and qualifications are all over the board. This is because, unlike becoming a Registered Nurse, there is no specific training or license required to become a nurse manager.
The position of nurse manager is one of the newer careers in medicine. It used to be that a hospital or nursing home would hire a business graduate to manage different areas of their hospital, the idea being that the management type would be good at keeping things in line and avoiding waste and generally running the operation to make a profit. What happened, though, is that the quality of care suffered, along with employee morale. The medical industry made a shift toward putting medical personnel in those positions, because they had “in the trench” experience, and knew what things could be cut, and what things were vital to maintaining quality of care.
To get a job as a nurse manager, you will need to fulfill some minimum requirements (these are general, since the actual requirements vary from location to location). You will need to be an RN. You will need to have a Bachelors in Nursing or a general Bachelors degree at a minimum. It would be helpful if you had a Masters degree (this will greatly improve your chances of successfully finding a nurse management position). You will need several years of experience. The minimum would generally be considered to be around four years of experience, but five to eight years would be very helpful. The hospital is hiring because of your experience, after all, so you need to put some time in on the job. If you do good work and let your bosses know that you are interested in moving up, chances are you will be able to work things out.