Program availability
Your Preferences
Update your Zip code, preferred campus, and preferred program
Patient Care Technician (PCT) to LPN: How to Advance Your Career
In as little as 1 year you can transition into a new career in nursing as a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) and begin a rewarding new career path.
Moving from PCT into nursing
As a patient care technician (PCT), you’ve helped many patients, worked closely with health care professionals, and have earned valuable experience in the medical field. As a next step in your career, you may consider becoming a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) and begin helping patients in a rewarding new role as a nurse.
Here’s what you need to know about potentially transitioning from PCT to LPN:
- Job duties, responsibilities, and scope of practice
- Education requirements
- Getting licensed
- Future educational and career pathways
- Salary potential and job outlook
Duties
1. Duties, responsibilities, and scope of practice: PCT vs. LPN
A patient care tech or PCT is a healthcare professional who works under the supervision of a Registered Nurse (RN) or other healthcare professional to provide basic patient care. They may work in a hospital, clinic, nursing home or doctor’s office. A PCT’s main role is to assist patients with daily living activities and medical tasks, ensuring their comfort and well-being.
Key responsibilities of a PCT include:
- Monitoring vital signs: Taking and recording vitals such as blood pressure, temperature, pulse, and respiratory rate.
- Patient hygiene: Helping patients with personal hygiene tasks like bathing, grooming, and changing clothes.
- Patient mobility: Transferring patients from a bed to a wheelchair or assisting with walking.
- Sample collection: Collecting blood, urine, and other specimens for laboratory testing.
- Patient observation and documentation: Accurately documenting patient care activities and observations in medical records. Also, monitoring patients for changes in condition and reporting any concerns to the nurse or health care team.
LPNs may also perform these tasks; however, they also provide a wider range of patient care services, including administering medications, monitoring patients, and performing basic wound care. An LPN has more autonomy and responsibility in patient care, making clinical judgments and decisions within their scope of practice.
LPNs may also end up specializing in a certain area of care, such as pediatrics, geriatrics, or wound care. As an LPN, you may have the responsibility to manage CNAs, PCTs, and other patient care workers as an LPN charge nurse.
Education
2. Higher educational requirements for LPN
As a PCT, you’ve gained great experience in the medical field. But to become an LPN, you’ll need to complete an educational program and sit for a licensing exam. You don’t need to earn an associate-level degree to become an LPN, but you will need to complete a career diploma-level program.
Our PN program can be completed in 12 months or less and must be completed on-campus at one of our eligible campus locations. This is not a program that can be completed fully online, although you may be able to complete some general education courses online.
The program includes classes focusing on growth and development, nursing fundamentals, and pharmacology. It also includes in-person clinicals, where you’ll get hands-on experience assisting patients under a nurse instructor’s supervision.
3. Getting licensed and becoming an LPN
It’s possible for PCTs to become certified, but it’s not always a requirement.
However, as an LPN, you’ll need to take the national licensing exam in order to practice. Once you’ve completed the PN program, you’ll be able to take the National Council Licensing Examination for Practical Nurses exam (NCLEX-PN).
You can potentially earn advanced nursing certifications in different focus areas, such as gerontology, cardiac life support, and wound care.
Career Pathways
4. Future education pathways, RN and beyond
Once you have experience as an LPN, you may want to pursue additional education to help advance your career. There are all sorts of new career possibilities once you officially enter the field of nursing as a practical nurse.
You may consider pursuing an associate or bachelor’s degree in nursing and work toward becoming a registered nurse (RN).
Bridge programs for active, licensed LPNs are common. Our LPN to RN pathways include bridge options at both the associate and bachelor’s degree levels, providing flexibility to students with different preferences in terms of time, cost, and overall career ambition.
Salary and Outlook
5. LPN salary potential and job outlook
The average annual salary for licensed practical nurses is $50,090 per year ($24.08 per hour), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.*
The job outlook for LPNs projects growth due to rising healthcare demands and an aging nursing workforce. Licensed practical nurse employment is projected to grow as existing LPNs retire or move to different types of work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 3% increase in employment from 2023-2033.*
Start your new career path in nursing
Ready to elevate your healthcare career? Now is a great time to consider training to become an LPN. It offers the opportunity to expand your health care skills, broaden your job opportunities, while still helping patients. Our university is built to help make your nursing career possible.
Learn more about our practical nursing program
* Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics 2023 / Occupational Outlook Handbook 2023. BLS estimates do not represent entry-level wages and/or salaries. Multiple factors, including prior experience, age, geography market in which you want to work and degree field, will affect career outcomes and earnings. Herzing neither represents that its graduates will earn the average salaries calculated by BLS for a particular job nor guarantees that graduation from its program will result in a job, promotion, salary increase or other career growth.