WORCESTER, Mass. — Becoming a registered nurse can be a challenging career path, but despite the demands this job often places on new hires, recent graduates are still signing up to care for their community.

In 1995, Philippe Berry was born at UMass Memorial Medical Center. He’s now nine months into his career there as a registered nurse.

He had struggled for a long time figuring out which direction he wanted to go, but a prior job at UMass Memorial working in insurance verification opened his eyes to other possibilities.

“It gave me the pathway forward, opened up a door to me that I didn't even know existed, and I had no idea that I wanted to be a nurse until I started working here in that role,” Berry said. “So it really did shine a light on my path.”

There’s been no shortage of new hires like Berry entering the nursing workforce, but a report from the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission found difficult working conditions and burnout can often cause newer nurses to seek other jobs.

Berry said he understood this career path would bring bad days, but it’s all about navigating them and putting challenges into perspective.

“There's going to be days that end with you not getting to do everything that you wanted to do, where you didn't get to provide the level of satisfaction for your patients that you'd want to give,” Berry said. “It’s knowing that you did everything that you could with the power that you had to make a difference for those people. Every day is a chance to start again.”

For Berry, it’s been about finding a balance. He said during his graduate program, students were told if they want to be able to take care of others, it begins with taking care of yourself. He said it all starts at home.

“One of the things that I'm grateful for since becoming a nurse is that I've had more time to invest in my health, eating well, going to the gym, getting exercise, spending time with my family, investing in hobbies and events that I like to go to,” Berry said. “There's a lot of community work that I like to get involved with, and taking the time to invest in those has been super helpful.”

Before deciding to become a nurse, others in the profession encouraged Berry to take it one step at a time, and start by making a difference for just one person.

He’s encouraging others considering this as a career to do the same.

“I’m really excited because this is just the beginning,” Berry said. “I don't know where it goes from here, but wherever I end up, I know I'm headed in the right direction. I'm really excited.”

Jaime Cesnickas-Doane, UMass Memorial’s director of nursing professional development, said the hospital’s graduate residency program has been helpful in preventing burnout among newer hires. She called the program a bridge between nursing school and practice.

“They have the support of their peers and they have the support of their preceptor, and then they also have the support of the new grad residency team,” Cesnickas-Doane said. “Each week in the residency program, we talk about different things that people can do to take care of themselves.”