"Divide and conquer" is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and it works on us. Man, does it ever work on us. I was just checking out a thread about male nursing, and you know what divided our little tiny camp? RNs vs. LPNs. The division costs nursing at large big time. And what is nursing? Nurses, plain and simple. Who are we? For starters, I just dug these links up:
The first one says there were some 2,697,000 RNs in the US in 2000.
Of these, 495,000 were not working as RNs.
The second, that there were 889,000 LPN licenses in the US in 2000.
Of these 596,000 were not working as LPNs.
OK, follow along with me if you will:
1. Our biggest complaint is being understaffed.
2. They say there's a nursing shortage on.
3. Almost 31% of us aren't working as nurses.
And,
4. There are way more LPNs not working than RNs.
Sure RNs should demand better staffing, which can be gotten without resorting to overseas recruiting by raising pay. And it seems to me that if RNs are legally defined as supervisors of LPNs, then as a group they should be advocating for LPNs to get paid decently so they can find it worthwhile to come back into the workforce. Just by looking at the figures, I'm thinking LPNs are underpaid a whole lot more than RNs are underpaid. And if we do that maybe instead of blaming each other we can build a nursing community, a voting bloc with huge clout. Let's face it, RNs by themselves don't have enough clout. But barely. To my thinking, RNs plus LPNs would definitely tip the scales. Connect the dots. We need a national organization that represents the interests and concerns of LPNs and RNs with members meeting on terms of equality. OK, at work the RN may supervise the LPN, but in a meeting, each should get an equal voice. We need each other.
