Got No Job? Come be an RN ! - Page 17

If there is true competition for the nursing jobs then the best at caring will get those jobs, right? I continue to see jobs posted for a year. Surely lots of nurses have applied. I honestly think it is a ploy to deceive the regulating agencies that the health care organizations are doing everything possible to achieve adequate staff/nurse ratios. It's just the 'nurse with the right credentials' hasn't been found. In the mean time, labor costs are trimmed. Someone needs to let the public who waits two hours to see a provider in an ER know.

Seems like a valid analysis to me dlatimer. I'm not so sure that there is actually a nursing shortage. It seems to me like an administrative/budget issue and not being able or willing to hire nurses. I graduated with a LPN class of 36 in May and only 7 of us have found jobs. Granted we are LPN, not yet RN. However with the elderly population on the increase, I would think there are plenty out there for LPN's. We live in a large metropolitan area.

To tell you the truth, I could care less about why someone decides to become a nurse. I can't judge anyone's motives. I enjoy the fact that so many nurses are very passionate about their jobs. I believe that everyone who puts up with all of the abuse that the nursing field gives out must care a little. Nurses who do not show a lot of passion aren't the problem. The problem is management. They could care less about those patients, they only see numbers. They try their best to cut nurses and increase patient loads. Where is their compassion? Have you ever thought that those nurses who do not seem compassionate may just be some of those people who don't show their feelings? Maybe they truly used to care and have become scorned from the abuse from patients, families, and management. I personally left the hospital setting and went to home health because of these reasons. I really feel that the hospital is not for me. Do you honestly think that the hospital feels any compassion about their nurses especially when it comes to budget? If it comes down to them making a choice between a nurse and her 3 kids or saving 10.00, guess which one will win!! Basically, I think that the lack of compassionate nurses is a direct result of abuse!

Merc, I have noted this myself. In the 1970's the hospitals 'wanted to do the right thing', but was often without the funds. In stepped the for-profit and not-for-profit companies who were able to buy these hospital systems cheap since most had a thin margin of profit or were in debt. Since the corporations only wanted to make money they quickly changed to 12 hour shifts, only 2 nurses to cover a 24 hour period and overtime was reduced. Staff was cut to bare bones and as abused, overworked nurses left new ones were recruited. A hospital near me will pay your tuition at their nursing school if you will contract for 2 years after graduation. The message seems to be: 'Don't worry about burn out, we'll just make new ones'. Besides old ones make more money and may understand what is really happening and want to change it. The regulators don't care about experience, only number of licenses. The doctors won't complain as long as they make money. As avarice grew in administration it trickled down to bedside nurses. I guess trickle down economics (or morals) does work. Has anyone else noted this?

It sure it's what is use to be, I am so sad that nursing has lost so much along the way of Medical/Nrg advances.

You should not write things that make you sound like a fool. You choose nursing to pick on when while nursing only touches less than fifty percent of American people, politicians touch 99 percent of the population (1% is made up of politicians and family.) You wanna talk about someone who takes a profession just for kickbacks and money, its your local representative.

If you're addressing me, then I agree that politicians are viewed as corrupt and rightly so. To quote from this article by Dean Baker: [re: the economy: ] ... If this disaster was preventable and we know how to get out of it, why didn't our leaders try to stop it before it happened? Why don't they take the steps necessary now to get the economy moving again?

The answer to both these questions is simple; the politicians work for someone else.

I was referring to the health care system of this country which may be just as corrupt. This is the 'trickle-down' of moral decay and greed.

This article in the NYT today highlights the deadly problems with manufacturers of medical devices getting FDA approval for devices that could be dangerous because of the compatibility of connections. It points out nurses who connected feeding tubes to IVs. Would increasing education keep this from happening? I can only speak for myself, but I would never do something like that. It is too obvious. Is this just another symptom of corruption in the health care system?

U.S. Inaction Lets Look-Alike Tubes Kill Patients

U.S. Inaction Lets Look-Alike Tubes Kill Patients - NYTimes.com

This a great post. This is true the so called nursing shortage has been over blown for years. The promise of job security and good steady income is too great of an attraction too many. I agree that I would rather have people become nurse who have a passion for nursing and people. Unfortunately there is no way to prove this. Many persons become physicians for the money and the prestige, people will lie about their motivations for getting into nursing and medical schools all the time. I asked an ER resident why he became a doctor and he flat out told me for the money, at least he was honest.

You are the epitome of what a nurse should be ,and I feel the same way as you, that is why I am going to nursing school at 54 years of age because i have always had a love and passion for health care especially nursing