What are the benefits of being a nurse?

This also means that nurses have a great number of choices in terms of where they want to live. Nurses don't have to feel tied down to one location because there are jobs for them wherever they would like to move to.

The United StatesBureau of Labor Statistics expects registered nurse employment to grow 15% between the years 2016 and 2026. This is a much faster rate than the average for all occupations.

As far as locations for work, hospitals are still the most common. However, there are a vast amount of other locations that offer nursing positions. Some of these include schools, private medical practices, private companies, airlines, cruise ships, and of course, a slew of other medical facilities.

There are also over 100 specialized nursing roles to choose from, including forensic nursing, holistic nursing, nurse practitioner, and travel nursing.

• Earning potential. Nurses make a variety of different salaries depending on their specific role and if they are specialized, but in general, nurses are well compensated relative to their profession.

The average salary of a nurse in the United States is $63,000 per year. And nurses that specialize in particular medical fields can even earn close to or above $100,000 per year.

• Nursing is a trusted profession. In terms of honesty and ethical standards, the nursing profession has maintained the number one spot on the annual Gallup poll for the last 16 years.

Being a trusted professional has many benefits, patients are likely to treat you with a great deal of respect and gratitude. And growing close with patients and knowing you are doing everything in your professional power to help them is a wonderful feeling.

• Nurses have flexible schedules. In general, nurses have a lot of flexibility in terms of their work schedules.

Nurses can often choose whether they want to work full-time, part-time, or on-call. And veteran nurses perhaps have the most choice when it comes to scheduling because seniority is often at play when nurses' schedules are created.

• Nurses help people. Nurses help people. Plain and simple. This is the backbone of the profession and is often cited by many nurses as the reason they went into the field.

  Nurses provide critical care and medical assistance to people when they are in their most vulnerable physical states; this is a sensitive job that takes skills and compassion to perform.

  Patients, in general, are extremely grateful for the services nurses provide. This can lead to a nurse feeling very fulfilled by their job.