[suzy253]

nothing we didn't already know.

[Rnandsoccermom]

Here is the email I sent regarding this report:

Hello,

I have been a RN for 22 years and was very interested in seeing your report on the nursing shortage. Instead I was very disappointed. All you you did was point out that there was one, not WHY there actually is one.

It has taken me 22 years of working nights, weekends and holidays to get 3 weeks vacation (if it's available when I want to take the time). I have missed family parties, my children's activities and countless hours of sleep working in the hospital setting.

Rn's get begged DAILY to come to work. When you are there, bathroom and meal breaks are a LUXURY and not required by your employer.

You are cursed at, swung at, spit at and threatened while on the job. You are also an at will employee and can be terminated for any reason.

THAT is why there is nursing shortage.

Respectfully,

[Emmanuel Goldstein]

[RN4NICU]

Originally Posted by soontobenurse2

DIDO!!!!

NO new information there!!!!!
How can the prevent the shortage of nurses?????
Well what about providing students with scholarships!!!

Yes, but there isn't really a shortage of students/applicants, is there? The bigger problem in the education area is that there are not enough seats in nursing programs due to a shortage of nursing instructors. Of course the biggest problem (therefore, the first one to be ignored by the media and administration) is RETENTION! It does very little to churn out multitudes of new grads if you can't get them to stay.

I didn't watch the newscast because I couldn't imagine they would have anything to say that we haven't heard before. It appears I didn't miss anything.

[SharonH, RN]

Actually that was one of the better media portrayals of nursing. They actually showed a nurse listening to heart sounds and nursing students learning complicated assessments as opposed to the usual view of nurses holding hands and talking about caring and holding hands and fluffing pillows and the other hippy-dippy heart stuff while the all-knowing physicians did all the important work.

And yes, I was disappointed that they chose to focus so much on the alleged cause of the shortage being the lack of nursing instructors although they did mention stress and the fact that the shortage is multifactorial. It wasn't an in-depth analysis for goodness sake, there's only so much they can do in 1 or 2 minutes. And for those who complain that they didn't show a nurse in the trenches well, just be glad they chose to interview nurses instead of a physician. I've seen that happen. And who said that just because the nurse is an executive or an educator that he or she does not know about the conditions on the floor? Where do you think most of them started?


Came back to add that they also made a point of linking the nursing shortage with poor health outcomes thus making the general public aware of why the shortage should be important to them.

[wickedrn]

Here is the link if anyone misses it. The statistics they shares were scary 1 in 7 new nurses quit due to the demands of the job
So what was the point of the story yes there still is a nursing shortage, yes each year qualified applicants are turned away, yes nurses do not want to teach beacause they can make more elsehwhere, so what is going to be done about it?



http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?...id/3032619/&fg=

[llg]

It's not NBC News' job to solve the problem. There job is to report it to the masses of people who either aren't aware of it or never stop to think about it. Yes, they could have done a longer, more indepth analysis ... but that's not what happens on the Nightly News.

We need to be political about this. If we attack every media outlet that reports on the shortage because they don't say everything we want them to say ... media outlets will shy away from reporting about it. We need to make them feel good about reporting on nursing (not bad) so that they will report more.

Let's not be our own worst enemy (yet again) by attacking the people who are trying to help us. We can't expect them to say everything we want them to say all the time.

[dekatn]

It would be nice if they could do one of the dateline reports on nursing, they mentioned that 1 out of 7 nurses are quitting due to stress, people need to know what that stress is, it would be a great way to educate the public. One would think that the only reason there is a shortage is because there isn't enough educators, which I know is one reason, but that said, they need to know what goes on in the trenches, everybody can't work in management.

[OB Night Nurse]

Originally Posted by Emmanuel Goldstein

What about getting out of my face all the time about "customer satisfaction" and let me do my damned job?

AMEN!
I wonder if you work for the same company I do???

[Altra]

Thanks to mom2bear for the link - I missed the news this evening.

I thought the piece was pretty well done. As SharonH pointed out, it showed nurses assessing patients & utilizing advanced technology. It also included a quote from a nursing school dean that a shortage of nurses is directly tied to poor patient outcomes. These are important things for the public to see and hear.