Long and good article on the nursing shortage.

-jt · Feb 14, 2003

excellent article. covers all bases right on target. we should send it to the health editors of all our local newspapers.

to contact the editor with comments:

http://citypages.com/contactus/editor.asp

oramar · Feb 14, 2003

I commented on this article on another post. Please scroll down and look at the very last line, the one about "telemarketing". To me there is no comparison between telemarketing and nursing. Why would anyone compare the profession of nursing to telemarketing which is unskilled labor? I found it to be demeaning. Yes, I thought it was a good article myself until I got to that last remark and was dumbfounded. I think that Miles guy would catch heck from a lot of nurses it he started off an article with that statement. Lucky for him most people won't read to the very end.

EmeraldNYL, BSN, RN · Feb 15, 2003

I agree, fantastic article until the silly telemarketing comment at the end.

Brita01 · Feb 15, 2003

I think this may be one of the best articles on the nursing shortage that I've read. Where as other articles only focus on one or two reasons for the nursing shortage, making it sound trivial to non-nurses; this covered so many more areas. If it didn't cover all of the reasons, it sure hit on most of them.

imenid37 · Feb 15, 2003

i had to chuckle at the telemarketing comment. again, no concept of what we do. maybe that boston tv reporter who didn't like being cast as a nurse as an extra on er should read this.

great article. sorry but for all we do, we should be earning at least 75k/yr. it makes me kringe to think of all the $ we waste on things like elaborate and unnecessary computer charting systems and plush offices for various administrative brown-nosers at the hospitals i've worked at. isn't it a real rip to see that there are people who are earning 6 figures who need a flow chart to wipe their behind or tie their shoes, but they tell some other pencil pushers the nursing budget is way over from too much ot.

i think it all comes down to the people we have allowed to lead us. not people elected or chosen by the rank and file, but administration's and physicians' hand-picked puppets. here's a novel idea. your facility has an opening for a nursing executive and she is chosen by a board of nurses elected by the rank and file on their units, not pc manager picked conformists, but people who represent the staff doing the scut-work. these people have the final word in her/his hiring, maybe she/he is one of them, and could if they do not meet the staff's needs dismiss them. i know it will never happen. we need leaders accountable to us , not the doctors or administrators.