Health careers. help please.

Question

okay.

for a while now, i've wanted to be a labor and delivery nurse.

i love babies and i love to take care of them.

my only thing is..i haven't had any children yet and i don't want the site of child birth to scare me out of it.

so now i have two careers that i would like to do.

either labor and delivery or open my own doctor's office..like where they check pregnant women and do the ultrasound, etc.

my question is..

how many years of school would each take.

for labor and delivery i would only have to go for 2 years because i'm taking classes now that when i'm finished i'll be certified already.

and which one pays more.

any thing else that you could tell me also.

thanks in advance.

Answer 1

To open up a doctor's office, you are going to need to have your MD license or to be working as a Nurse practitioner under a physician. Both those are going to require many years of education.  Your undergrad Bachelor's degree, then master's degree for the NP, and medical school / residency for the MD.   Not sure how you would go about opening an office as you describe without that.

You can become a RN in 2 yrs with an associate's program and then go and work in the newborn nursery / maternity if you'd like.  

Of course as far as pay  the nurse practitioner or MD would pay way more then the RN - although RN is a good paying job