Nursing is an excellent career for those passionate about helping people lead better lives by providing emotional, physical, and medical support.
Notably, it’s ideal for team-oriented people who love a challenge and put patient care as their top priority.
Nursing offers numerous career paths and advancement opportunities, making it suitable for many individuals.
For instance, nurses utilize their expertise to work in bedside care, research, education, and entrepreneurship.
In addition, registered nurses earn excellent incomes and receive amazing healthcare benefits.
The following section provides ten reasons why nursing is a great career and what to expect if you join the profession.
1. Nurses Work in Various Specialties
The nursing profession offers many exciting disciplines for aspiring healthcare workers.
As a result, people can pursue career paths that suit their desires, needs, and lifestyle.
Educated registered nurses can work within direct patient care settings, education, research, and other domains.
There are over 100 specializations available that cover every aspect of healthcare.
2. The Nursing Profession is Amazingly Flexible
The nursing profession is excellent for those who care deeply about work-life balance.
Numerous bedside jobs are highly demanding and require nurses to work hard throughout the day.
However, many nurses have the opportunity to work full-time or part-time schedules to suit their needs and preferences.
Some nurses also work on a per diem basis allowing greater flexibility to accommodate their lifestyle.
There are opportunities for nurses working non-bedside care jobs to work reasonably stable schedules.
For instance, research nurses typically work 9 am – 5 pm Monday through Friday and receive holidays off.
Nurse educators also enjoy regular hours and are off during some breaks.
Besides that, there are work-from-home jobs for nurses who want to avoid commutes.
It allows them to dress more comfortably, save time, and better manage responsibilities at home.
Finally, some nurses become travel nurses to earn money while traveling throughout the United States or abroad.
Travel nursing is fantastic for adventurous people who want to experience new destinations by taking temporary assignments.
3. Nursing is A Highly Rewarding Career
Nursing is extremely rewarding, allowing healthcare workers to make a massive difference in people’s lives.
Nurses are educators, caretakers, advocates, and motivators.
These professionals help people recover from various injuries, illnesses, and medical conditions in bedside care positions.
In addition, they work alongside other registered nurses, physicians, and specialists to provide the best care possible.
Nurses who work in education prepare the next wave of students for their roles in healthcare.
They provide education and mentorship to ensure students provide adequate healthcare to the communities they serve.
Nurse entrepreneurs develop technologies, software, systems, and products to improve the lives of others.
For instance, Figs wear creates comfortable, fashionable medical clothing, so medical professionals look and feel great.
They found a gap in the scrub market by focusing on style and the professional clothing medical workers needed.
As a result, they were able to improve the lives of healthcare workers and build a profitable business.
4. Nursing Offers Excellent Job Stability
Nursing is a reasonably recession-proof profession because people will always need healthcare regardless of the economy.
In addition, there’s a nursing shortage, and the number of people requiring medical care is steadily growing due to an aging population.
As a result, job stability is exceptionally high, and institutions compensate healthcare workers to keep them employed.
Nurses who have difficulty finding work in one location can move or find a work-at-home career to support their lifestyle.
That said, every area and institution has different needs and staff requirements.
As a result, some nurses may need to relocate to find work if none is available in their area.
5. Nurses Have Strong Earning Potential
Nursing provides excellent job stability and benefits but pays qualified nurses well.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average registered nurse with a bachelor’s degree makes roughly $80,000 annually.
It’s a higher salary than the average manager, building inspector, or construction engineer and is close to what civil engineers make.
In addition, many registered nurses earn six-figure salaries by pursuing high-earning careers in well-paying states.
Some nurses who become advanced practice registered nurses, like nurse anesthetists, earn over $200k yearly.
6. Nurses Recieve Excellent Benefits
Nurses receive numerous benefits from working in healthcare care.
It includes paid vacation and holidays, paid sick time, tuition reimbursement, childcare, and paid family leave.
They also receive health and life insurance, retirement benefits, wellness programs, and certification fee reimbursement.
The benefits available to nurses vary depending on the healthcare facility.
As a result, nurses must determine what benefits offer the best advantages when choosing a job.
Fortunately, many healthcare organizations are competitive and offer numerous benefits to attract skilled nurses.
7. Nurses Can Purse Advanced Education
Registered nurses who want to play a more significant role in their profession can pursue advanced degrees.
It allows them to become advanced practice registered nurses or APRNs.
APRNs work as nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, certified nurse-midwives, or clinical nurse specialists.
Each profession offers exceptional pay, benefits, and responsibilities allowing nurses to perform at the highest level.
For instance, nurse practitioners act as primary care providers, prescribe medications, diagnose conditions, and open clinics.
They are integral in ensuring underserved communities receive adequate healthcare.
Alternatively, certified registered nurse anesthetists ensure patients receive adequate medication when undergoing medical procedures.
Their expertise is necessary to prevent patients from experiencing pain, medical complications, or loss of life.
8. Nursing is a Highly Respectable Career
Nurses are well-educated, hard-working, essential employees who play a pivotal role in healthcare.
As a result, working in nursing is highly respectable, with numerous social, economic, and societal benefits.
These healthcare workers have the opportunity to save lives and positively impact the people they serve.
They also educate others, develop new technologies, advocate for nurses, patients, and underserved communities, and drive essential healthcare policies.
Is Nursing Right for You
The nursing field is continually growing and simultaneously experiencing an expanding nursing shortage.
As a result, hard-working nurses experience excellent job security, promotion opportunities, and competitive pay.
With that said, nursing isn’t without its challenges.
It requires a dedicated mindset, compassion, continuous education, and resilience., especially for those in bedside care.
Registered nursing is not for the faint of heart or those focused on earning a high salary.
It requires a lot of commitment and selflessness since, in many cases, the patients need to come before the nurses.
Long hours, multitasking, and giving your undivided attention are things nurses have to master to be effective.
Nevertheless, saving lives and helping patients is internally rewarding and satisfying.
Few things feel as good as giving someone a second chance or healing an injured person’s wounds.
As a nurse, you’ll gain vital skills and a mentality that allows you to take your education and confidence beyond the nursing halls and into your everyday experiences.
Nursing can be a great career choice if you truly want to help others in need of medical care.
Currently, there are over 100 specializations for aspiring nurses.
As a result, there is always an exciting field to choose from, no matter your interests.
Below you can find a list containing just a handful of positions available to those interested in working as registered nurses.
Interesting Nursing Careers
Here are just a few of the many amazing professions in the nursing healthcare sector.
Each occupation offers unique experiences, challenges, and benefits for hard-working nurses.
It also offers distinct career paths for those with particular skills and interests.
Hospital Registered Nurse
Hospital registered nursing offers new and existing nurses entry and advanced level positions.
Students who come out of a nursing program start working as entry-level registered nurses.
As they acquire experience, they apply for positions in more specialized fields.
Registered nurses provide care to patients requiring medical aid, whether from an illness, injury, or other emergencies.
Flight Nurse
Flight nurses work onboard a variety of aircraft, including helicopters and winged aircraft.
These nurses are responsible for providing immediate on-site medical care at the scene of an incident.
Healthcare institutions utilize flight nurses when ambulatory care units cannot reach someone in time.
Flight nurses fly to the patient’s location, assess their condition, and provide medical care until they reach the hospital.
These nurses assist in different situations where there has been a significant accident.
For instance, when a patient needs to be airlifted, during a flood, during large-scale catastrophes, or when terrain makes ground travel impossible.
Emergency Room Nurse
Emergency room nurses work in ER units, hospitals, and healthcare facilities.
These healthcare specialists assist doctors with providing immediate medical care to patients in critical condition.
Essentially, ER nurses are registered nurses who have received education and training in critical care and emergency care.
Emergency care differs from general care because patients live in more severe conditions.
As a result, becoming an ER nurse takes years of training and skill development.
It’s difficult for many new nurses to cope with patients suffering from traumas and simultaneously multitask in emergencies.
However, it is gratifying to make a difference in so many lives.
Legal Nurse Consultant
Legal nurse consultants counsel lawyers when a medical professional’s training and expertise are needed to solve a case.
These nurses focus on abuse, violence, medical malpractice, false medical claims, and other medical-legal cases.
Legal nurses center on the medical and physical side of claims in these cases.
As a result, lawyers can better assess the actual medical facts of a case by consulting a legal nurse consulting.
In addition to determining the factors, legal nurse consultants make sense of confusing medical terminology.
That way, the judge, court members, and lawyers better understand the impact of particular medical-legal claims.
In some situations, legal nurse consultants provide legal console as a full-time job.
At this point, they may no longer work within patient care settings but purely as legal counselors.
Forensic Nurse
Forensic nurses combine technology, science, medicine, and psychology to solve violence, sexual abuse, and murder.
These healthcare professionals work on-site (at the scene of the incident), managing cases involving living and deceased persons.
However, they also work at hospitals, clinics, and healthcare institutions where victims receive medical care.
Forensic nurses first provide medical assistance to patients involved in a traumatic, violent, or abusive situation in healthcare settings.
They communicate with patients who are often afraid or ashamed to admit what happened or are unaware (unconscious) of what happened during the abuse.
They use their training to determine what occurred to provide appropriate medical and psychological aid.
In turn, this helps patients manage their recovery and find justice.
Forensic nurses also assist law enforcement in cases where an individual has been murdered or has died of unknown causes.
In this situation, they may work with a forensic autopsy specialist to gain further insight into what causes led to the individual’s death.
Geriatric Nurse
Geriatric nurses focus on caring for elderly patients who need special medical attention and care.
These nurses focus on the physical, psychological, social, and family concerns older adults face and consistently emphasize the positives of successfully growing old.
Geriatric nurses must know the regular changes during old age and understand them well.
They must also be aware of abnormal psychological behavior and physiological changes that result from aging.
Accordingly, they can treat those issues if and when they arise appropriately.
These are just a few of the many great careers available to registered nurses.
As you can see, registered nurses receive excellent medical benefits, great pay, and job security.
They also have the opportunity to help thousands of individuals throughout their careers.
Each healthcare setting varies in terms of what they offer and can provide nurses.
Good healthcare organizations offer high-quality medical coverage, financial incentives, mental health programs, and career advancement opportunities.
Finally, the population is continually growing, the nursing field is constantly expanding, and older nurses are retiring.
As a result, new positions are becoming available to those interested in registered nursing.
When you combine a growing job market with new and diverse career specializations, the possibilities for nurses are limitless.