Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses

Overview

Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses has a national median salary of $64,400 per year, with +3% projected job growth from 2025–2035. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists a postsecondary certificate as the typical education needed to enter this occupation.

Description

Care for ill, injured, or convalescing patients or persons with disabilities in hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, private homes, group homes, and similar institutions. May work under the supervision of a registered nurse. Licensing required.

Work Values

• Relationships
• Support
• Achievement

Work Styles

Responsibilities

Tasks

• Observe patients, charting and reporting changes in patients' conditions, such as adverse reactions to medication or treatment, and taking any necessary action.
• Measure and record patients' vital signs, such as height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, pulse, or respiration.
• Administer prescribed medications or start intravenous fluids, noting times and amounts on patients' charts.
• Provide basic patient care or treatments, such as taking temperatures or blood pressures, dressing wounds, treating bedsores, giving enemas or douches, rubbing with alcohol, massaging, or performing catheterizations.
• Answer patients' calls and determine how to assist them.

Work Activities

• Assisting and Caring for Others
• Documenting/Recording Information
• Getting Information
• Making Decisions and Solving Problems
• Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work
• Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge
• Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events
• Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates
• Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings
• Resolving Conflicts and Negotiating with Others

Detailed Work Activities

• Providing personal assistance, medical attention, emotional support, or other personal care to others such as coworkers, customers, or patients.
• Entering, transcribing, recording, storing, or maintaining information in written or electronic/magnetic form.
• Observing, receiving, and otherwise obtaining information from all relevant sources.
• Analyzing information and evaluating results to choose the best solution and solve problems.
• Developing specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish your work.
• Keeping up-to-date technically and applying new knowledge to your job.
• Identifying information by categorizing, estimating, recognizing differences or similarities, and detecting changes in circumstances or events.
• Providing information to supervisors, co-workers, and subordinates by telephone, in written form, e-mail, or in person.
• Monitoring and reviewing information from materials, events, or the environment, to detect or assess problems.
• Handling complaints, settling disputes, and resolving grievances and conflicts, or otherwise negotiating with others.

T-A-S-K

Technology, Abilities, Skills & Knowledge

Education

Education Levels of Current Workers

The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists a postsecondary certificate as the typical education needed to enter this occupation. The chart below shows the highest level of education held by people already working in this field, ages 25 and older. It includes workers who earned more education than the job requires and workers who entered the field under earlier requirements, so the largest bar is not the entry requirement. For example, if someone finished an associate's degree and then started working in this field, they are counted under “Associate's degree” here, but the job itself typically asks for a postsecondary certificate.

Certificates

Certifications applicable to Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses:

Video Resources