Flight/Transport Nurse – Career and Education Profile

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Flight/transport nurses work with patients who haven’t yet reached a stable care facility or who can’t make it to one of these locations for some reason. This is a high-stress and fast-paced nursing job where you’ll work closely with a team of nurses and doctors to provide care.

Job Responsibilities

As a flight/transport nurse, you’ll work in the field, instead of in a traditional hospital, clinic, or other type of medical facility. Your tasks will change from situation to situation but could include everything from assisting doctors transporting a patient in serious condition to working on the scene of an accident to rescuing stranded patients. In these types of situations, triage is important, and you’ll need to follow directions carefully as you’re assisting doctors and do what you can to help patients deal with pain and keep patients alive until they can reach a hospital. Your job may also require you to communication with family members so they are informed as to what is happening to an injured or ill loved one, or you could serve as a liaison between the transport team and the doctors and nurses waiting at the hospital.

Salary and Career Options

Because you’ll be working in a stressful situation and often tasked with making life and death decisions, few LPNs are hired as transport nurses. As an RN or advanced practice nurse in the flight/transport field, you can expect to make between $60,000 and $75,000 annually, depending on your educational level, experience, and location.

Educational Requirements

You need at least an associate’s degree to work as an RN, but many facilities prefer flight/transport nurses to have a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree, with education specific to the trauma, emergency, and transport fields. Once you have experience in this field you can take the Certified Flight Registered Nurses exam, and some flight/transport nurses opt to get certified as an EMT.

LPN to RN College Programs

While several schools have online nursing degrees available, few offer LPN to RN programs. What's the good news? We have listed some accredited schools below that do offer the program in addition to schools with other bridge programs available. Find out more information and contact each school by using any of the links below.

Indiana State University—Indiana State University offers a robust online program designed for LPNs wanting to become registered nurses and earn their BSN degree. Since ISU's credits transfer to over 80 campus majors, this is an ideal program for people wanting to open opportunities for their career down the road.

The College Network—The College Network is a partnership with several universities and organizations like the National League for Nursing that focuses on online education and programs, with several courses for nurses or those interested in a nursing career. Specifically, TCN helps students prepare for their PN and RN licensures and move on to earn graduate degrees.

Other Nursing Degrees

Walden University—Walden University is typically a graduate school with several masters and doctoral programs available, but they do have BSN and RN to MSN bridge programs available. Walden is based out of Minneapolis and offers several options in transferring your previously earned credits to and from (or even within) the school.

Kaplan University—Kaplan University is one of the nation's largest and leading online educators and offers several bridge programs for registered nurses to earn their BSN or MSN degree. If you have previously earned credits, Kaplan makes it easy for you to transfer to any one of their undergraduate or graduate programs.

Herzing University—While Herzing University does not offer an undergraduate nursing degree, it is a great choice for working nurses wanting to pursue leadership positions in Nurse Education or Management. With over 10 campuses and 45 online programs available, Herzing has a massive network that makes it easy to transfer to or from the school.

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