Illustration By Lucy Aaron

Nursing is the fastest-growing occupation in the United States. This is due to an aging population and a high demand for nurses. With so many specialties to choose from, you’re bound to find one you’ll be interested in. Choosing a career in the nursing field will be the right fit for you as long as you’re passionate about helping people. As a nurse, you will be open to a flexible career, flexible schedule, and working in flexible locations. You will not only be making a difference in other people’s lives, but you will also be making a difference on your own with the gratification you will earn throughout your career by helping others.

Neonatal Care

Neonatal nursing involves caring for newborn infants born with a variety of problems, including prematurity, birth defects, infection, cardiac malformations, and surgical problems. As a neonatal nurse, you may work in a hospital, but you can also expect to work in the community, providing home care or follow-up for high-risk patients. Neonatal care tends to be emotionally draining and less physically stressful. You will be making a difference in the lives of infants and their families. Families will always remember your face in the sea of others wearing medical uniforms.

LPN

A licensed practical nurse cares for those who are sick, injured, convalescent, or disabled. Being a licensed practical nurse requires you to perform a variety of daily tasks, from dressing wounds to feeding infants. You will have the opportunity to work in all kinds of medical settings, including hospitals, clinics, physicians’ offices, nursing homes and sometimes even in a patient’s home. Nursing jobs are in demand, especially for LPNs. LPNs are in high demand and will grow 22% by 2020. If you’re compassionate and have a good tolerance for stress, then putting on nursing uniforms and finding a job as an LPN could be the right choice for you.

Holistic Nurse

Defined by the American Holistic Nurses’ Association, holistic nursing is the art and science of caring for the whole person. This practice recognizes the totality of the human being – caring about the patient’s relationships, spirituality, and overall well-being. Being your patient’s holistic nurse in their healing process makes you their educator, consultant, facilitator, and partner, while still dressed in medical scrubs as any other nurse would be.

Occupational-Health Nursing

As an occupational health nurse, you provide for and deliver health and safety programs and services to workers, worker populations and community groups in order to identify health and safety needs in the workplace. You oversee hazardous work conditions and even get your own office! Occupational health nurses work in manufacturing and production facilities, hospitals and medical centers, as well as in other employment sectors, including government. It is typically a Monday through Friday job, but may vary depending on your work environment, position and responsibilities.

Travel Nursing

Travel nurses fill in during shortages at hospitals and facilities. When full-time nurses need a break, you as a travel nurse will step in. Agencies pay for your living expenses to work on assignments in different parts of the country. These typically last between 8-13 weeks. Benefits include free high-quality furnished housing, travel reimbursements, and bonuses and incentives. You can also work in any of the 50 states! You will be opening doors and opportunities to places you never dreamed of going while working on rewarding and fulfilling nursing assignments all across the country in your nursing scrubs.

Nurse Informatics Specialist

If you’re more of a techie, a job as a nurse informatics specialist might be the right fit for you. Nurse informatics specialists are at the forefront of changing technology in the medical world. They use their technical skills to setup and maintain hospital networks. In a nursing informatics work environment, being a good communicator is a must. You are responsible for managing and communicating data and information to consumers, nurses, patients, healthcare providers and patients, while still dressed head-to-toe in a scrub uniform.