If you are a staff nurse in a hospital, most of you time will be spent as a caregiver, communicator, patient teacher and patient advocate. You will mostly USE research to base you care vs create new (although you may collect data for a research project).

If you are a nurse manger, you will spend more time in leadership and advocacy roles with some educator (for staff) and counselling. You will do less caregiving.

If you are a nurse educator, obviously you will spend most of you time doing teaching and leadership roles. You must have a master’s degree, so you may also have research responsibilities.

If you are a PhD, you may spend most of your time doing research and some teaching of students, as well as leadership roles.

So, as you can see, all the roles are essential, but you may choose to move your nursing career to focus on the role(s) you most enjoy. That’s one of the great things about nursing!

http://www.getintopharmacyschool.com

http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15327027HC1504_04

http://www.jcn.co.uk/journal.asp?MonthNum=03&YearNum=2004&Type=backissue&ArticleID=675