NICU nurse questions

adventure_rn, MSN, NP · Oct 10, 2017

Welcome! In general, NICU nurses make the same salary as any other nurse in the hospital; you may be able to get a small pay increase (~$1/hour) for being in a 'specialty' nursing area, or for earning a specialty certification.

Nursing salaries vary greatly depending on your location and years of experience. The lowest I've seen is $18/hr (~$36,000 per year) for a new grad in a low-paying region with a low cost of living, and the highest I've seen is $74/hr (~$148,000) for nurses with 30+ years of experience in a high-paying region with a high cost of living. If you're from the US, you can click on the 'US' tab at the top of the screen to find forums about your state; there are often posts under the different states discussing salaries in different cities.

If you browse through the old posts on this forum (NICU), you'll find a ton of information about NICU nursing (best parts, hardest parts, how to get a NICU job, etc.)

I saw that you wrote another post saying you're unsure about what type of nurse you want to be: that's ok! I think that it's best to go into nursing school with an open mind, since you never know what specialties you'll enjoy until you get in there and try them. One of the great things about nursing (as opposed to medicine) is that you can always change specialties down the line.

Best of luck!