While many people studying medicine assume they’ll be working in a small practice or a massive ER, there is another option that is becoming more and more popular with each passing year: working in an urgent care center.

These centers are taking a more modern approach to how they provide medical care and provide a less overtly intense environment for medical workers to practice their care. If you’re wondering about what a career as an urgent care worker could offer you, here are eight of the unique benefits urgent care workers enjoy across the United States:

1. Working in the Town You Live In

Urgent care centers are popping up everywhere across the United States. Unless you live in a very small town, you likely have at least one urgent care center within your city limits. For those who do not want to travel long distances to go to work every day, and who enjoy being a part of their community, the fact that you can almost certainly work at an urgent care center within the town you live in becomes a massive perk.

2. Plentiful Work Opportunities

Because urgent care workers are opening at a super-fast rate, the amount of positions that need to be filled is nothing short of massive. For those who want to find your next urgent care job, the fantastic job market, plentiful work opportunities, and amazing benefits of the career path will be sure to catch your eye.

3. Flexible Work Hours

Unlike emergency rooms, urgent care centers are rarely open 24/7. Due to this, you can gain a reliable, predictable work schedule (which is a perk many other medical workers would kill for). There is also more flexibility surrounding scheduling, which makes it yet again an outlier in the medical industry. The more modern business models of urgent care centers become the key reason they can offer more predictable, flexible work hours to their workers.

4. A Smaller Chance of Burning Out

Many who work in emergency rooms find themselves burned out frequently, making them less satisfied, and greatly negatively impacting their mental health. Thankfully, those who work in urgent care work in a slower-paced environment with much lower stakes. This, combined with the many other benefits we’re discussing on this list, allows urgent care workers to report much smaller rates of burnout or negative mental health conditions than those who work in most other medical fields.

5. Varied Career Paths

Career paths in the urgent care field are incredibly varied. Because you’ll be doing such a wide variety of tasks, having specialties under your belt will make your career path open up even more. As we’ll discuss more later on, you’ll also receive special on-the-job training that will boost your ability to move between varied, exciting positions during your time as a career-long urgent care worker.

6. Working Intimately with a Small Staff

If you work at a massive hospital or another huge medical facility, you’ll likely never know everyone who works with you. At urgent care centers, on the other hand, you work with a smaller staff, allowing you to develop an intimate, satisfying professional relationship with every single team member. This perk not only boosts job satisfaction, but it ensures that you can care for your patients in a much sharper, more effective fashion. This business model allows urgent care workers to communicate with the whole staff in a way that greatly improves the quality of care they can provide to their patients.

7. Constantly Learning On-the-Job

When you receive quality medical education, you can make more money, and serve your patients more effectively. Urgent care’s unique medical environment ensures you have near-constant on-the-job training and learning opportunities. Because you’ll have such a massive knowledge base regarding special medical care needs, your career path becomes significantly widened. For those who want flexibility in terms of where their career will lead them, this benefit will prove incredibly attractive.

8. Enjoying an Intriguing Work Environment

Because there are so many tasks to handle at any given time within an urgent care center, you can be guaranteed that each day will be an intriguing journey. If you love to constantly learn, and discover new talents, working as an urgent care worker is almost certainly a perfect fit for you. The amount of excitement, fast-paced problem solving, and teamwork you’ll experience by making a career within the urgent care industry will keep you thrilled by your valuable, patient-focused work.

Begin Your Career as an Urgent Care Worker Now

Because there is such a massive demand for urgent care workers, this career path is one of the safest life choices you can make. The high-pay, solid benefits, and great work/life balance you’ll gain by becoming an urgent care worker make this potential career path that much more attractive. If you’re ready to serve your community and embrace a different style of medical care, you should seriously consider whether a career as an urgent care worker could be a perfect fit for you.