Maintaining the license without work, and a general rant

Nurses Job Hunt

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So, I'm one of those once-upon-a-time new grads who is no longer a new grad but who has been unable to find employment. I'm building this little patchwork of short term employment situations (camp nurse, flu shot nurse) and was idly looking at the requirements for licensure in a neighboring state recently when I saw that this particular state has, as part of its maintenance requirements, in addition to CEUs, a practice requirement. To wit, 400 hours. And if you do not have the 400 hours you are required to take a refresher course.

My state appears to be a little lax in the keep-your-license-active department, 15 CEUs every two years. For this I am thankful, even though I actually think it is wise to require a minimum number of hours of practice. But I wonder how many of us are going to fail in this regard because WE CANNOT FIND WORK?

400 hours = 40 hours/week for 10 weeks. I guess being a flu shot nurse might get you there.

- Graduated May 2009

- Excellent student, top of the class

- Revived the student nurse's association

- Got a nationally known speaker on nursing to come to campus, offered CEUs for attendance at her lecture

- Received the department's highest award for academic, clinical, and leadership excellence

- I've taken a refresher, I volunteer at a free medical clinic and as a vigil sitter in the palliative care program at a continuing care community; took a medical Spanish class last year; occasionally attend grand rounds at local teaching hospitals in areas of special interest.

- "Mature," i.e., old, and overweight. I'm working on the weight thing; down 15 lbs so far, thank you Weight Watchers. Can't do anything about the age, though I have considered, for the first time ever in my entire life, dying my hair.

What was I thinking, going back to college in my mid-50's? I get the occasional interview but never seem to click.

Hey, you, hiring managers: I thumb my nose at all of you who will not hire me because I have no experience. I hear horror stories from friends who work as PCTs (because they too cannot find jobs but were smart enough to be working as PCTs before they graduated) about the bad behavior of many of the nurses they work with: mocking their patients, speaking of them derisively, not attending to a particular patient because they don't like them, and in general doing as little as possible because they want to be in Facebook or fooling around online. Why are personal devices even allowed on the floor? Oh, because nobody hires real live people to answer telephones anymore. Duh. God help me if I ever have to be in a hospital and have no one to advocate for my care.

Off for my morning walk, it'll probably cheer me up.

Specializes in Government.

I am astonished at the proliferation of new schools of nursing in my region, all making pie in the sky promises about the great unsinkable nursing career. I'm in my 50's and I happen to be the only nurse in my group of friends. They all call me now, wanting to know if their kid should go to school for nursing. I give then the following: at 1 year, 20 % of my class had left nursing. At 5 years 50% were gone. By 10 years I was the only one still actively practicing. Even when jobs were begging, it isn't for everyone.

Specializes in Critical Care.

I watched a video College Conspiracy and there was a dentist on it that had over $150,000 in loans with interest now over $250,000 and some of her loans were HEAL loans, govt healthcare loans and they have now banned her from taking care of medicare patients since that loan went into default. She says she can't take any medicare or govt workers and has been lucky the group she works for has accommodated her by giving her private pay/insurance patients but that she doesn't make near enough to pay back her loans.

So I wonder how this applies to nurses with HEAL loans? Of course if you go into default for non-payment they will take your license to practice away any way so the point would be mute!

I've read there are a lot of doctors and chiropractors with HEAL loans that cannot treat or get paid for medicare patients and there are in a catch 22. Chiropractors especially have had troubles keeping up a private practice and paying back student loans due to the over saturation in the market as well as insurance limitations in the first place.

If its any comfort your not alone in the unemployment line. Until you can get full-time paid employment I would continue to turn to agency even consider getting travelers contract. Many nurses travel on 6 week assignments, room and board is paid for, plus your wage. Granted it would be difficult without having the solid experience but you could give it a try! Hopefully something will work out!

Specializes in Med/surg, OB, L&D, psych, ED, etc.

"about the bad behavior of many of the nurses they work with: mocking their patients, speaking of them derisively, not attending to a particular patient because they don't like them, and in general doing as little as possible because they want to be in Facebook or fooling around online"

Really??? because you can't get a job, you speak poorly of other nurses. Nurses have personal lives, they eat, they go to the bathroom, they check messages and email, just like other professional people do on their breaks or down time.

Join the club of people who disrespect, bully and poorly represent nurses to the public.

Specializes in Critical Care.

I'm not surprised CA has no openings, it is like a paradise to many people with the climate. ocean and wonderful views, plus it has the best staffing ratios in the nation! I can see why lots of nurses would relocate to sunny CA! But even CA has lots of problems, the govt is practically bankrupt, droughts, water shortages, earthquakes, and high utility bills. They just had a major blackout due to one mistake a state away! They import their electricity so they are susceptible to electricity blackmail like Enron was guilty of, even gas prices are quite high out there.

So as wonderful as CA can be there are other parts of the country to focus on for jobs! Like others said TX seems to have openings, we had several India nurses relocate to Texas with pay raises. Heard their are openings in ND as well.

Specializes in Hospice / Psych / RNAC.

We keep saying it's going to end but how can it when there are soooooo many new grads each year and the influx of foreign nurses is at an all time astounding rate. I really can't see just because the baby boomers retire that all will be fine. I am hearing so many young people going into nursing for the wrong reasons ... they are promised jobs with security. This defiantly saddens me.

Also where I am (to acknowledge the OPs post) there are no CEs or hours of work to renew the RN. I have worked in OR and WA as well and those places require both or at least did 12 years ago. I know a nurse who hasn't worked for 10 years and still has her license active here. Doesn't matter; there aren't any jobs.

I will tell of the island I call my home which is Kauai ... there are 2 hospitals, 3 emergency rooms (1 LTC commissioned to have an ER because of the remoteness and the other 2 ER are at the two hospital), a few LTC facilities (I can count 4), and the home health places, hospices, etc... The point is this island has a community college that spits out 40 something new grads a year and this island is the perfect place for all the experienced nurses who want to live in the sun (there are tons) and the foreign nurses and don't forget the online schools.

Now on Oahu there are many places to work but there are several universities and over a dozen community colleges with RN programs. The last person I talked to about the wait list said it was like 3 years. The saturation of all types of nurses is astounding. Perhaps the baby boomers will all drop sick but I doubt it since they are all very health conscious as far as I've seen.

This political nursing bull that's being fed to the public about nursing for over 20 years just changes the rhetoric to fit the situation. Now they hang their political hat on the baby boomers retiring. It's the same song just a different tune. Don't bet on it.

Specializes in Psych, CD, HIV/AIDS, Complex Medical CM.
Research is one of the areas I have an interest in, but rare is the job that does not require experience in that setting. I have tried to get hired as a clinical research coordinator (I would be very happy to start there!) as a way to get my foot in the door, but when I finagled a conversation with the hiring manager (after she'd evidently decided not to interview me), she told me outright that she wouldn't hire me because once I found an RN job I would leave and she wanted someone who would stay 2 years.

I keep trying. I will keep trying. But it's a grind. And I hate being in limbo.

Yeah, the job climate SUCKS, no matter where you are. So what I would reccomend with research is NOT applying for positions like "coordinator," for 2 reasons: the position that you want is called "MP-Medical Personnel" This is the work that is done by LVNs/RNs on research studies. This is how you get your foot in the door for jobs like "protocol director" and "project manager". Coordinator positions are really hard work, for infinitesimal money, so you don't want to get in the door like that. Here is a site of that a doctor I know from another site started: http://www.nonclinicaljobs.com/ Maybe that will be helpful for you. I definitely understand your pain- while not exactly the same, my situation is similar. I am an LVN and ridiculously grateful that I a) have a job as an LVN b) work in research at a job I enjoy and c) really want my RN & MSN, and want to go back to school, but I am terrified to walk away from my job. On one hand, I have a job, and I'm beyond fortunate, on the other hand, that job is preventing me from following my goals, and on still another hand, if I follow my goals, there's no guarantee I'll ever find work again. It's all very frustrating.

Specializes in PICU, ICU, Hospice, Mgmt, DON.
While it's human nature to complain I find it odd that so many "new grads" continually sit in a saturated market and complain there is no work.

If I were an auto worker sitting in Detroit wondering when I could get hired building cars when no one is making cars I would have the same complaint.

Here's a suggestion: Go where the jobs are...

Florida, California... Hell, Texas is begging for nurses. Houston, Dallas, Killeen/Waco. (Waco was even offering money to relocate. When's the last time you've seen relocation money?)

2009 and no job??? Laughable...

NO jobs for new grads in Florida...what makes you think that there are? I have friends in So Fl that graduated in Dec 2010 and are still looking. The market is saturated.

Specializes in medical surgical.

If you cannot find work you ned to contact your congress. They believe we have an emergency shortage of nurses hense house bill 1929: i recently attended a townhall meeting in my state and they said i should have my pick of jobs. This is why they want to import 20000 foreign nurses.

Specializes in LTC, Medical, Rehab, Psych.

Yeah right. I'm almost 38 and had 10 years of experience in another healthcare field. I was lucky enough to find a LTC position in my state of WA but I sure as hell can't move away for better work in my super-RN-saturated city! I have a house, a kid in school, a husband with a job we can't afford to leave, etc. Who but a fresh new 20-something grad can just move away for work? And does that work? I've certainly relocated for work in the past and it was HARD. Good luck to all!

Hmm. I was initially reading your post with empathy and understanding. Top of class, lots of extra activities, and the seeming motivation to plug away and do what it takes to find employment. Good on ya.

But unfortunately when I got to the last few sentences of your post I thought I might understand the problem. Let's see: critical of other nurses that you don't even know (based on hearsay from PCTs??) Really? You deam others who have (the job you want) a job as lazy, inept, and lacking.

If you come from a place of "I am the bomb" "first in my class" and think you are better, smarter, more caring than all the nurses currently employed maybe that is part of the problem. Maybe it comes across in the interiews. And yes, being older and overweight may play a part in not being hired. And that may not be fair but it is life. But I would work on the more sublte things. Maybe attitude and how you come across. Just a suggestion.

If you cannot find work you ned to contact your congress. They believe we have an emergency shortage of nurses hense house bill 1929: i recently attended a townhall meeting in my state and they said i should have my pick of jobs. This is why they want to import 20000 foreign nurses.

I think you are being charitable to imply that our elected representatives believe that we have an "emergency shortage of nurses". They pretend to believe it which gives them the cover for backing HR 1929. While the evidence is sketchy, I believe that the lobbying for this bill is for purely economic reasons: To keep or even increase the numbers of nurses in order to control costs.

Nursing wages have increased quite a bit in the last decade and are now seen by many hospitals and health care companies as one of their primary cost drivers. In our open market system, the more attractive salaries draw more interest in nursing, which drives demand for more nursing schools, followed by increased numbers of nurses entering the practice and eventually the slowing or cessation of upward pressure on wages. This is market equilibrium and after a short period where supply and demand are in balance, the cycle would reverse. This is kind of where we are now in the economic cycle and in a truly free market, we would start to see a gradual reduction in the production of new nurses, in turn leading to a shortage and then eventually, a repetition of the cycle.

In my view, we no longer have that free and open market guided by the "invisible hand" that Adam Smith envisioned. Again in my view, our economic system is now much more plutocratic than capitalistic with large corporations and the wealthy now enjoying an almost unrestrained ability to manipulate the market to their purposes. So those large hospital corporations, insurance companies and other health care corporations continue to push the "nursing shortage" through their lobbyists and the mantra is picked up by legislators who are dependent on these companies for the cash needed to fund their election campaigns.

The end result is a bill like HR 1929, whose real purpose is to ensure the continuing oversupply of nurses in order to maintain wage pressure. A great side "benefit" of HR 1929 for its proponents is that potential nursing students continue to see government corroboration of the nursing shortage and so apply continuing pressure on nursing schools to maintain or even increase enrollment. Thus, the proponents of HR 1929 get the double benefit of both more foreign nurses and more domestic nurses in the job market. I believe that end result will be precisely what big health care wants: Continued downward pressure on nursing wages for a much longer period than would be the case in a truly free market system.

I frankly hope to be proved wrong in this but have the sinking feeling that I'm largely on the mark.

Specializes in Psych/Corrections.
I find it interesting how many times it's suggested that older RNs looking for work, should focus on nursing homes. :rolleyes:

:lol2:

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