LPN Salary

Although Varying by Job and Location, One’s LPN Salary Will Be Ample

With LPN schools, both of the corporeal variety and those available for attendance online, in existence in multitude in every state of the union, the opportunities for prospective nurses to earn an LPN salary only is limited by his or her willingness to enter and pass a one-year LPN program.

To enter such a program, one must be at least 18 years of age and possess no less than a high school diploma or an equivalent GED.

And the monetary rewards after spending that one year in LPN training, split between classroom studies (at-home studies for online students,) and in-the-field studies under the supervision of an RN or physician, not only are profitable, but secure. The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated that there were more than 750,000 Licensed Practical Nurses employed in the U.S. in 2008, and projected that number will balloon by another 21 percent in the next 10 years.

For anyone interested in venturing forth to launch a career as an LPN, these statistics translate into job security for anyone competent to do the work.

Finding reliable, updated LPN salary information through Internet searches can become a challenge because figures often vary markedly from site to site, plus some Web sites don’t share the source or date of their information.

That stated, a reputable Web site named Indeed.com says that, as of January 18, 2012, the LPN salary average in the U.S. on an annual basis was $47,000.

That Web site disclosed average annual salary figures for 15 different areas in which LPNs regularly work. The highest paid annual salary from among those 15 was the LVN (Licensed Vocational Nurse)-LPN category, where nurses with one-year certificates were paid $55,000 per year. Because LVNs only exist in California and Texas, and basically are the same as LPNs who work in the other 48 states, an educated guess would be that the higher wage is based on location more than the general type of work performed.

Other above-average salaries, according to Indeed.com, went to flu shot LPNs ($53,000) and six other areas where LPNs were paid an average of $51,000 per year: LPN urgent care, LPN family practice, LPN obgyn, LPN pediatric, LPN urology, and LPN primary care.

What Do LPNs Do to Earn their LPN Salary?

Licensed Practical Nurses have the opportunity to work in many different settings, with some settings traditionally paying a higher wage than others. Whether an LPN works in a hospital, nursing home, group home, private home, dental office, mental health institution, community health clinic, or at a public health department, there are many commonalities in their overall LPN job description.

LPNs are trained to care for people–often more than one–who are ill, disabled, convalescing, or injured. Although they routinely work under the supervision of RNs or physicians, LPNs regularly work in a closer, more intimate relationship with patients than RNs and physicians and are responsible to monitor the health of patients and report any health abnormalities to the attending RN or physician.

The duties of an LPN often include the collection of samples for testing, performing routine laboratory tests, feeding patients, and recording food and fluid intake and output. Other common duties an LPN might have assigned to them, depending on what area of the health community in which he or she is working, include collecting health histories of patients; measuring vital signs such as height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and respiration; preparing and giving injections and enemas; monitoring catheters; dressing wounds; giving alcohol rubs and massages; and both cleaning and monitoring medical equipment.

What Impact Do Location and Type of Work Have on LPN Salary?

Another Web site, LPN123.com, posts hourly and annual salaries for LPNs according to which state they work in. And if this Web site is accurate with figures it posted in 2009, there has been a phenomenal increase in LPN wages during the past three years alone.

When LPN123.com posted its figures in 2009, that site said the average annual salary paid to LPNs nationwide was $34,000, or $13,000 less than Indeed.com says is the median wage for LPNs in mid-January 2012.

Even if one questions the reliability of the overall figures posted on LPN123.com in 2009, there is no logical reason to question the general state-by-state rankings posted at that time. The highest paying states three years ago, according to LPN123.com, were: 1) Massachusetts, $48,180 annually and $22.80 per hour; 2) Connecticut, $46,890 annually and $22.58 per hour; 3) the District of Columbia, $45,450 annually and $21.85 per hour; 4) Rhode Island, $43,460 annually and $20.21 per hour; 5) New Jersey, $41,240 annually and $19.98 per hour; and 6) Maryland, $40,600 annually and $19.55 per hour.

At the conclusion of any aspiring LPNs one year of study, which may differ somewhat in content from one school to the next, stands the unavoidable National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-PN) which must be passed before anyone becomes certificated as an LPN and is authorized to work in that nursing capacity anywhere in the United States.

The overriding goal of all LPN schools and each LPN program is to teach and prepare students to pass the NCLEX-PN licensure exam.

Curriculum for these courses regularly includes, but is not limited to fundamentals of nursing, anatomy/physiology, nutrition and diet therapy, introduction to pharmacology, psychiatric nursing, medical-surgical nursing, and maternal child health.

And this great LPN salary only can be realized when one puts in roughly one year of study and passes the NCLEX-PN licensure exam.

About Dolly Hutson

Dolly's passion is to care for the sick and the elderly, yet quiet reserved and detached. She is an independent and natural thinker who does not accept second best. Find out more about Dolly on her Google Profile.

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