People who are sick, in pain, or possibly dying might be slightly less emotionally regulated than your typical customer.

I've spoken with nurses who've had a variety of other jobs at other types of places. They are consistent in telling me that working as a nurse is a worse environment in the way they are treated.

The example stories they have shared are the type of thing I can't relate to and I've worked in software, general engineering, food service, construction, and tech support (I answered calls for 3 years).

All customer-facing positions have to deal with rude customers. Very few of those positions specifically select for customers with a high correlation to selfish and/or antisocial conspiratorial behavior. Almost all COVID hospitalizations are unvaccinated, and there's a very large (if not majority) portion among that population that chose not to vaccinate for entirely selfish reasons, and another large portion who have been actively consuming media telling them the members of the medical profession are the enemy. You'd be hard pressed to select for a more adversarial customer base.

Yeah I don’t know about that bud. Try telling the spouse of a dying person that their half baked ideas they read on Facebook aren’t valid and tell me their meltdowns are comparable to working retail.

All jobs suck donkey dick, but jobs directly dealing with sick and dying people are on a different level.

Most industries are neither tasked with restoring health nor with being the bearer of hard truths about a person's health. I think it stands to reason that healthcare can be a particularly toxic environment for those reasons.