Future Shortage in Bedside Nurses

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I have been an RN for 22 years. In recent years, we all know that the trend has been for acute inpatient facilities to try to hire BSN nurses as much as possible. However, another trend that I am seeing, both here on these forums and in the places where I have worked, is that most of the young BSN nurses have no desire to do bedside nursing any longer than they have to. All I seem to hear is that they all want to either move into a management position or go back to school to become an NP or CRNA. Even the ones who haven't voiced those goals have expressed a great contempt for bedside Med/Surg nursing and want to work in specialty areas such as OB. The thought process seems to be that they didn't go to school for four years "just to" care for sick people at the bedside. If this continues, it seems that there is going to be a great shortage of bedside nurses in the near future as more and more of the "old school" nurses retire.

Does anyone else see this where you work? What happens to the army when everyone wants to be a general and no one wants to be a foot soldier? I'm just curious. I have over 100 undergrad college credits that I could apply towards a BSN, but at this point in my career, I just want to finish out my years as a nurse taking care of people who need help. Never had any desire to climb the ladder whatsoever. Are any of you new grads in the same boat, where you would be contented to do bedside nursing for the foreseeable future, or is being a bedside nurse becoming passe'?

Specializes in rural, camp, telephone triage, abstraction.
If bedside nurses had to take organic chemistry there wouldn't be any bedside nurses. You don't need organic chem for BSN. If working conditions were better, BSN's would stay at the bedside. All these new grads who want to go for advanced degrees don't know enough to see the unexpected coming up to slap them in the face. Young dreams have a habit of getting put on the back burner when it comes to raising kids, borrowing money, etc.

Bio chem is required for some BSNs. I had to take organic chem; couldn't have passed the required biochem course without it. ;)

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In the quest to become "magnet", hospitals have tossed out the nurses who truly felt called to bedside nursing and remain there: The Career LPN. The LPN who loved her job, didn't mind "the mess", and thrived on giving bedside care has been told she's not "enough" and relegated to working in LTC, HHC or prisons (not that there is a thing wrong with any of these, but the hospital option is pretty much gone now - but the hospitals will have the need!).

LPNs need to be brought back into the hospital systems.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
As I observe all the new nurses coming into my hospital I don't see a lot of them staying at the bedside. A lot of student nurses are planning bsn only as stepping stone for another specialty such as np. It is sad to say that after I retire and need health care a lot of the nurses who would be caring for me would only be there, not for the love of it, but because they hadn't yet moved on.

I've noticed the same thing. People start in our unit with the idea that they're going to apply to anesthesia school "next fall." Since our orientation is six months, someone who applies to anesthesia school is probably starting the application process while they're still on orientation and leaving the unit before they've been there a year. The ones that stay longer are the ones who got passed up by anesthesia schools -- and they'll try again next year. It's the rare nurse who is at the bedside because she or he wants to be at the bedside.

With all the new grads taking bedside positions only until they "get something better," I suspect that when I'm old and demented, the only nurses taking care of me will be the ones with no experience who are waiting for that magical "something better." What a sad state of affairs!

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Specializes in TELEMETRY.

I am one of those nurses who have gotten higher degrees so I can get away from bedside nurseing. I havent sucessfully been able to leave bedside nursing yet. I have six years floor nursing experience under my belt with that I have about a year home health nursing experience and 3 years LVN on the floor too. I got my BSN and now doing my MSN with an ultimate goal to ba a NP. Now a days floor nursing is getting harder and harder. I work at a county facility and as a floor nurse, i do my own lab draws, transport my own patients to radiology, OR, CT or where ever on a moments notice, do all the nursing things and including ADLs becasue the nursing assitatn has 24 patietns of her own. SO that is why when I work a 12 hour shift i am exhasuted. I do feel a great sense of accomplishment at the end of the day especially if i helped saved someone life. This is just a bit too hard to work though forever. I feel too stresed and angry and that cannot be healthy.so I can see why bedside nursing will be short. Once all the older bedside nurses retire there will only be very little nurses who will stick it out in this hard enviorment.

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Specializes in Home Health, Case Management, OR.

Didn't start at the hospital, and hope to not ever have to work at the hospital. I have my ADN and had applied and was accepted for the RN-BSN program, but I decided I didn't want to spend anymore time in school with my son being under 3. A BSN will not increase my pay at my job, so it seems a waste of money to not make any money. I HAD the NP idea in school like everyone else, but quickly realized that I have no desire to put that much into an education. I am content just doing what I do and living life.

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After 32 years of acute care bedside nursing and seeing the way things are going with the corporate disease influencing and drowning out the core values of nursing - all I want to do is get out of nursing and go do something else until I retire- 10 years I really don't care any more what they do. Nursing has become so vile anddisgusting it sickens me.

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Specializes in ER.

On the first day of nursing school, the professor asked to see a show of hands for how many people were planning on applying to graduate school eventually. There were 27 people in the classroom, 26 raised their hands.

I graduated in May 2010. Of those 27, there are people who have already finished some type of MSN and more than half of them are already in some kind of MSN program. (Many people were worried that the DNP requirement would creep up soon and be a bother to their licensure so they started right away down that path.) I can not think of a single nurse that I know who started and finished in a BSN program who plans to stay bedside longer than required to obtain enough experience for an MSN program.

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The only MSN's I know - are not bedside- one with only the required not even 2 yrs said to me "I didn't get an MSN to wipe butt"

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Specializes in TELEMETRY.
The only MSN's I know - are not bedside- one with only the required not even 2 yrs said to me "I didn't get an MSN to wipe butt"

LOL she is right!! I mean why woukd u get a masters to wipe butts?? thats probably a 75000 education!! LOL

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If bedside nurses had to take organic chemistry there wouldn't be any bedside nurses. You don't need organic chem for BSN. If working conditions were better, BSN's would stay at the bedside. All these new grads who want to go for advanced degrees don't know enough to see the unexpected coming up to slap them in the face. Young dreams have a habit of getting put on the back burner when it comes to raising kids, borrowing money, etc.

Apparently there are a few MD programs that feel the same way. Who knew?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/nyregion/30medschools.html?pagewanted=all

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, Dialysis, Hospice.
In the quest to become "magnet", hospitals have tossed out the nurses who truly felt called to bedside nursing and remain there: The Career LPN. The LPN who loved her job, didn't mind "the mess", and thrived on giving bedside care has been told she's not "enough" and relegated to working in LTC, HHC or prisons (not that there is a thing wrong with any of these, but the hospital option is pretty much gone now - but the hospitals will have the need!).

LPNs need to be brought back into the hospital systems.

Great post! I have been an RN for 22 years, and some of the best and most skilled nurses I have ever worked with were the career LPNs of yesteryear who put everything they had into their jobs and weren't afraid to work. I would give anything to have some of them back on the inpatient units as opposed to new grads who are already looking to escape hands on care, and I would have trusted many of them with my life. There's something to be said for learning that was obtained from working in the trenches and sticking with it for years.

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ADN here, 60K/year income range, I work ICU and have no desire to go back to school. However, I do sort of feel like I am in a race against time to get my house paid off before my body quits on me. I like bedside better than I like the idea of taking organic chemistry.

You may have to look hard, but there are a few BSN programs that do not require OC.

U of Penn's undergrad BSN IIRC does not require OC but does have a chemistry componet.

Oddly it seems there are many RN to BSN programs that do not require OC.

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