Thinking About Nursing? 5 Reasons It Might Be The Career For You

If you’re thinking about nursing, firstly: good for you! The fact that it has occurred to you suggests that you are an empathetic, intelligent, socially-minded individual—in short, exactly the sort of person who would make a good nurse. However, if you’ve found yourself on the fence about whether it would be a good fit for you, here are a few key reasons to strongly consider starting down the path of one of the most rewarding, important careers in the working world.

1. You Genuinely Enjoy Helping Others

This is fundamentally the best reason to pursue any career, but especially one as intrinsically linked to helping others as nursing is. In both a medical and an empathetic capacity, nurses are the backbone of our societal support system for the unwell and injured. As well as assisting in the application of care in a technical sense: administering drugs, taking readings, performing tests, and so on, nurses are responsible for being an interface between an often scared patient and complicated and intimidating systems. As such, a nurse who takes genuine pleasure in the difficult task of helping people cope with harsh treatments, terminal diagnoses, and life-changing injuries is one who is certainly well-suited to the role.

2. Nursing Never Goes Out Of Fashion

It is the very nature of human existence that it is transient—a candle burning briefly in the gales of time. As such, there will always be a need for kind souls to guide us through what are often the hardest, bleakest times in our experiential journey: healers, sages, and carers have been a respected part of human society for as long as time. Think back to famous nurses like Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton—these were figures central to both the public good and the popular imagination at the time. Even in a job market increasingly plagued by automation and the role of artificial intelligence, it is almost impossible to imagine a world where we don’t need nurses and their skills in one way or another.

3. High Levels Of Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction among nurses has traditionally been, and remains, high: over 80% of American nurses surveyed reported moderate or extremely high levels of job satisfaction when asked. Despite being time-consuming and often challenging work, nurses end their day more satisfied with their work than many other workers—given that how you spend your days is how you spend your life, this seems an important metric to bear in mind. Job satisfaction is also linked to mental health, making it incredibly important to all parts of your life and overall wellbeing.

4. You Want Every Day To Be Different

A change, as the old adage goes, is as good as a rest: while perhaps this isn’t quite true—I’m sure we’d all rather relax on a beach somewhere than go into work—it is certainly true that one of the biggest draws of a career in nursing is that each day presents a different array of situations and problems to which you can apply yourself. Whether it’s a busy day in the emergency room, a long day in the operating room, or a full day of checking on patients in the ward—you’re sure to face a wide range of challenges and situations every day.

5. You Want To Be More In Control Of Your Work Life

Within nursing, there are many ways to customize both your working week and your career as a whole. There are many opportunities for specialization and further education and training, increasing both your knowledge base and skillset and your potential earnings. The almost omni-present demand for nurses means that in all probability there will be a job for you wherever you would like to work, meaning that nursing is also a geographically flexible career, if you want to see different parts of the country or the world whilst maintaining a reasonably stable income. Although it’s important to remember that different locations might have different licensing requirements. Leadership roles are also available, and especially since the COVID pandemic, nurses have been at the forefront of the burgeoning telehealth movement, meaning that many nurses can work a hybrid home-office week.

These are just a few of a myriad of very strong reasons, both moral and practical, to consider becoming a nurse—it is a flexible career filled with learning, helping, and empowering your fellow humans when they need you most.