As the largest group of health care professionals, nurses play a vital role in the health care system.

Nurses practise in a variety of settings as direct care-givers, teachers, counsellors, advocates, co-ordinators of care, and members of a professional organization.

Nurses are employed in hospitals, schools, industrial workplaces, community health departments and on cruise ships, among other settings.

As a nurse, you could be contributing to life-and-death decisions in a busy hospital emergency ward. You could be providing vital information to new mothers and vaccinations to their babies in a community health setting. In schools and industries, nurses combine preventative health and safety with first aid techniques and counselling.

Nurses work as essential members of health care teams, as in a hospital - or independently, as in a remote northern Canadian nursing station, where the nurse is often completely in charge.

Nurses work to promote health and prevent illness, as in community health and well-baby clinics - or to treat clients over an extended period, as in rehabilitation centres and other long-term care settings.

With clinical experience and further education, you can expand your professional options to clinical specialization, nursing research, education and/or administration.

Nursing is one of today's most challenging and rewarding careers.