What are the pros and cons of being a nurse?

• As a nurse, you get to help people. This is often cited as a top pro of the nursing profession. 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.

• Earning potential as a nurse. 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.

• Nurses are in high demand. Nurses are in demand in nearly every part of the country. It is extremely rare for a qualified nurse not to be able to find work. 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 pretty much wherever they would like to move to. The United States Bureau 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.

• 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.

Cons:

• Nurses experience burnout at a high rate. Another key con in nursing is burnout. This is a form of exhaustion caused by constantly feeling swamped with tasks and being overworked.

  In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the problems nurses normally have with their jobs. Nurses tend to be overworked, and the pandemic has exacerbated this issue to an almost unprecedented level.

• Nursing can be a stressful job. Most nurses can feel overwhelmed on a daily basis, especially if they work in large hospitals or emergency rooms. In these environments, lives often hang in balance, and mistakes can cause deaths.

  This weighs heavily on the nurse population as a whole, and the stress of it can cause anxiety, depression, and other mental issues.

• Nurses, in general, are not happy. According to a study from Pennsylvania's School of Nursing nurses', unhappiness stems from stressful working conditions, staffing levels, and unsatisfactory benefits packages.

  Another study conducted by Nurse.org surveyed 1500 nurses in more than a dozen specializations and found that the majority of nurses are unhappy with their current roles. It also cited that only 12% of nurses said they were happy in their current roles.

  The study also found that about four out of ten nurses would need to see significant changes in their jobs in order for them to stay.

• Exposure to germs and viruses. Perhaps one of the worst aspects of being a nurse is the exposure to germs and viruses. Nurses, of course, have PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), but all the gear and sanitizing methods are not full proof, and nurses often get ill from being on the job.

  Extreme forms of exposure include being accidentally pricked by a needle from a patient with a blood-borne illness or getting a splash of bodily fluid in the eyes. However, it is important to note that most hospitals and medical facilities have cleansing and testing procedures in place for handling such situations.