LPNs here in AZ get paid from $12 and hour to $27. I've worked for some registries that paid $27/hr. County, clinics, and nursing homes pay from $12/hr to $17/hr (not worth it if your the med nurse). Here in AZ you can have up to 42 patients on a med pass and it was the only time I ever experienced chest pain in my life. You must also answer phones, take admissions, do treatments, help with feeding, chart and so on. Many facilities will not pay you if you run overtime on your shift or miss your lunch. I work as a private nurse and make $23/hr. I have one special needs child in my care. I don't get breaks and have to fight for time off. Some of the Families feel like they own the nurse. Families asked if my mother could reschedule her wedding because it didn't fit into their dayplanner schedules, or could I change my family vacation or reschedule a surgery, illness or death because it was inconvenient for them. Now the good points about what I do. You get to follow the patients' progression. You are a part of the goals. You feel like a nurse not a pill pusher or like you are working on a human automated assembly line of treatments and bandages. It's rewarding to see a patient the doctors said would never walk run and who could never acheive academically read write and do arithmatic....to see miracles happen.