What Are The Highest Paid Nursing Jobs?

Are you considering becoming a nurse and would like to know what the most lucrative specialisation is?

Or perhaps you’re an experienced nurse looking for a better salary?

The average salary for registered nurses in Australia is $79,092.

However, nurses with extensive work experience or extra education can earn a lot more than that. For instance, completing a Master's degree in nursing can significantly boost your income as a registered nurse.

So, to help you make an informed decision, here are the four highest-paid nursing jobs in Australia.

Pain Management Nurse

National average salary: $89,908

A pain management nurse is a registered nurse who specialises in helping patients with chronic or debilitating pain to live a better life.

Below are some of the main responsibilities of a pain management nurse:

• Identifying the type of pain their patients experience and assessing whether the current medication is effective
• Altering medications when necessary
• Monitoring patients for signs of dependency or organ failure
• Handling complications from long-term medication use
• Ordering medical tests
• Diagnosing complications

Certified Registered Nurse Anaesthetist

National average salary: $103,585

Certified registered nurse anaesthetists are advanced practice registered nurses specialising in the field of anaesthesia, emergency and resuscitation care.

They typically assist doctors, dentists, surgeons and other healthcare professionals.

Here’s a summary of their main duties:

• Providing pre-anaesthetic preparation
• Obtaining informed consent from patients for anaesthesia
• Selecting and administering pre-anaesthetic and anaesthetic medications
• Providing anaesthesia induction, maintenance, and post-anaesthesia care
• Inserting invasive line catheter and other devices
• Providing post anaesthesia follow-ups, and writing reports

Clinical Nurse Manager

National average salary: $115,716

Clinical nurse managers aren’t your typical nurse in the sense that they handle administrative and managerial tasks along with typical healthcare duties. Their main responsibility is to manage, guide and support a nursing team.

And this involves:

• Assessing the performance of registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and nursing assistants and providing feedback
• Interviewing and recruiting new nurses
• Creating and coordinating the work schedule for staff members
• Overseeing inventory and signing off on the ordering of new supplies
• Evaluating the quality of patient care and making operational changes when necessary
• Coordinating meetings
• Managing the nursing unit’s financial and human resources and making budgetary decisions

Nurse Practitioner

National average salary: $126,362

Nurse practitioners are experienced registered nurses whose expertise and extensive clinical knowledge allow them to provide advanced healthcare services.

Because nurse practitioners have such a wide scope of practice, they’re filling in the gaps in terms of healthcare practitioners in Australia and are therefore in high demand.

Some of the main responsibilities of a nurse practitioner include:

• Performing physical examinations of patients to assess health and diagnose illnesses
• Ordering and performing diagnostic tests, like x-rays and any laboratory tests
• Defining and initiating appropriate treatment plans, and adjusting if necessary
• Prescribing and dispensing medications
• Recording patients medical information and maintaining medical records
• Arranging consultations with other health care providers
• Actively keeping up with medical research and trends

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