But we are expensive and are being put out to pasture.
Yup. Happening here in the layoffs/firings/restructuring. I keep seeing people mysteriously disappearing...they find a way to get you gone. Lots of shiny, new (and cheaper) faces keep popping up though...
Talk about going to work with a target on your back.
OP as you can see from the responses so far you have made an unfortunate choice of subject for your paper . The shortage of nurses is a myth perpetuated by nursing management and faculty .
Management wants this myth to continue so that schools will keep churning out nurses to replace those who leave the profession because they cannot take the abusive behavior of their facilities management any more , so that there in fact remains a SURPLUS of new grads who are desperate to take a job , whose pay and conditions drop due to the competition for positions .
Faculty maintains the myth of nursing shortage , to keep the punters coming through the door , because as is common knowledge ( dripping in cynacism )there are almost garunteed posts for newly minted nurses .
If there is actually a shortage of nurses , we are defying the laws of supply and demand in that employers are not exactly rushing to increase our pay and benefits , in fact at the moment they are trying to slash them .
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Yup. Happening here in the layoffs/firings/restructuring. I keep seeing people mysteriously disappearing...they find a way to get you gone. Lots of shiny, new (and cheaper) faces keep popping up though...
Talk about going to work with a target on your back.
No kidding right? Stinks, It really stinks......and it makes me sad. I am not so sure this is where nursing should go.......
I don't really know if there is a shortage. But I must correct the title of your thread. It should say "Effect." Just FYI, since you're writing a paper. o_O
Is this a typical example of your writing skills or are you typing this on a phone? BTW, no nursing shortage. Now THAT might be the better paper. And do look up the difference between "affect" and "effect". Very different words that you will often use in a nursing career.
I think I would like to address the point made in the orginal post of managment and leadership, nurses leaving the profession due to the stress level of the nursing job enviorment and BSN programs not turning good "leadership" candidates.
I think first I would like to state that there is no nursing "personel" shortage. There is a nursing "job postion" shortage. There is too many unemployed and under-employed nurses in this country that NONE of the PTB are honest enough to publish or discuss!! I know this first hand as I have been an RN for 32 yrs. Since 2008 I have found my self unemployed-
1. Not collecting benefits that were rightfully mine because I didn't know any better. Unemployment bene's were not a body of knowledge, information and the process of collecting that was given to a "nurse". And back in the day , a nurse did not need to know because there was always jobs avail if you didn't like the one you currently had. Nurses could always work 2,3 jobs at the same time because I knew many that did as a sole breadwinner of a family. So the 'sole breadwinner of the family' is not a new phenonomen in Nursing.
2. I have found and still am under- employed- since 2008. I have taken anything I can find in nursing. Needless to say, these jobs have been temporary, perdeim but NOTHING fulltime hours and permenent status. I have been per deim at a hospital- which I was getting cancelled at. The excuse because of hospital budget and census. The census I could see and understand. The budget cost I do not believe for one minute. When a hospital pays and continually pays top leadership exhorbant salaries, bene's and refuses to bring in a per deim nurse making the same pay as their staff nurse without the bene's- that is a bold inyour face lie. So as a result- the per deim nurse looses pay and the staff nurse works short staffed, spread thin, over worked and stressed out. In this "per deim position" I was expected to be at the Beck and call of the hospital- just sitting by the phone 24/7 waiting to be called in! I am the sole support of my family and I can not pay a mortgage and bills on $650/month. I took other temp positions, agency positions( which was the cancel game of the per deim). When the hospital found out I had a fulltime hour temp position, they would call me when they knew I was working the temp position expecting me to call out of the temp position with full time hours and pay ? or manuvering me into resigning from the hospital position beause I was not sitting by the phone, waiting with baited breath, for them to call. I hung in there on both and was eventually fired from the per deim position- because I was not avail to them when they wanted me. My temp position ended- as it was only for 6 months during the H1N1 crisis. How long does the Nursing PTB think a nurse is going to jepordize their family's exisitance over these games? With this act on the hospital's part, I filed unemployment, collected unemployment and told ALL to the unemployment investigators. AND at a time when the unemployment rate in this country was over 9%, this was 2010. I sent them every scrap of paper I recieved from that hospital. I won!! There was a time in Sept- Dec 2009, I was working 3 jobs to make 1 fulltime pay- flu shot clinics( $22/hr and driving sometimes 2 hours each way), part time LTC( $32/hr and 3 days per week) and the per deim hospital( $33/hr as for the hours; your guess is as good as mine) During the unemployed period of 2010- I meet other nurses at that unemployment office- SURPRISE!! Nursing world!! These nurses were older experienced nurses like myself, not new grads. At that hospital- I saw older experienced nurses who had been at that hospital for 20, 25 30 yrs, told to take their pensions and get out or they were going to be fired and loose their pensions. I know It happened, I witnessed it. The nursing management was willfully, blatantly going along with and contributing to the unememployement rate and breaking the law not to mention abusing, threatening, harassing and intimidating their nursing staff!!!And continue to do so- working short staffed for no crediable reason at all- ( lacking nurses who want to fill those empty positions). I saw a nurse who had been at that hospital over 25 yrs holding on to her spouse for dear life her last day there, just to get herself out of the building so no one could say she did anything derrogoratory on her way out. That I will never forget.
This leads to the leadership/ managment issue. There is a difference between Leadership and management. Management you are dictated to by the higher ups- told what you will and will not do. Leadership is qualities one is born with, it's a personality trait you either have or don't have- the genuine desire to mentor, teach, assist and want to do the right thing, ethics. There are no ethics in manangement. The current nursing management in these facilities ( acute and LTC)do not posses any leadership qualities. They are too dumb to know the difference. They lack in the ethics and conscious depatment of ones personality. Their concern is only themselves. Not the good of the group as a whole they are in charge of. Which has no positve outcome in the quality of patient care or job perfomance that is delivered on their units. They don't care what kind of job is done, just to say something is done. Younger staff members are cheaper to employ and do not see a big picture yet in their career/skill level developement. There is no mix of skill levels in these facilities, there is not ongoing upward challenge to highten or sharpen their assessment skills, decision making skills- it the same mediocere, novice level floating around.
The nursing manangment of today doesn't even care that this is the way it is- It's all about them. There is no investment( engagement) in their job. only the money they put into their degree. They may graduate BSN's but what quality of a nurse are they graduating- !!! And with what ethics???
I might add- another trend I have seen. They may give you a raise, but you better look over your shoulder, because your termination is not far behind it. The PTB will make it( termination) happen. You will suddenly be nit picked to death- where there were affirmations on you job performance, you will suddenly not be able to do anything right, someone you used to get along with, you will suddenly be at odds with. any positves are long gone. They will give new meaning to toxic boss, bully and toxic work enviornment.
If some one says something nice about you, look out- your dead. It's the "good cop-bad cop" mind game. If your patient praises you, look out- you manager will feel intimadated by this. The manager thinks you are there to make them "look" like a princess- it's usually with women managers. They have to be the 5 yr old at the birthday party with the prettiest dress that every one notices. It's so sickening. Tell a manger with a new haircut how nice it looks and she will spin around like a that 5yr old to show it off- The first time I saw this I almost laughed out loud at her. What an immature child- and I still am stuck with her- she is severely lacking in nursing experience( 10 yr to my 32) and is as rude and as sneeky as they come to me. One day nice, the next day full blown PMS or psychosis. and yes, she spun around like a 5 yr old at a birthday party- reminded me of the IKEA commercial with the twins standing at the 2 ovens and the mom makes a big fuss over her new 2 ovens.
This is when you gain the knowledge- there is a difference between leadership and manangement. This is when you find out how insecure your managment really is. No book or classroom can teach these crazies how to be a good leader- that is called psychotherapy and medication.
This is the third time you have posted this query. I cannot imagine why you cannot understand that there is no nursing shortage, and that if you chose to write you paper on this topic, you will have to make up your premise.
An independent some one( a nurse not affiliated with a University) needs to study the Real Shape of the nursing profession. Not someone with motives of keeping a cheap nursing workforce gene pool.
These university researchers need to stop quacking the same old stale lie about the "nursing shortage" that those of us working the trenches know is a bold faced lie.
I also know that nursing doesn't want the truth of it's dark shadey deceiptful ways to get out- so more money in the form of tuition will keep pouring in, then promise jobs upon graduation that aren't there.
The waiting lists, the rise in tuition, the cut throat competion to get through a program, graduation, no job and the never ending career advise - the interview tactics, the application tactics, how to dress for success, the super duper resume( that 10yrs down the road you'd be ashamed you wrote because it was so self inflated boastful) all for jobs that don't exist, but no one told the truth about before you put yourself into $70,000-$90,000 debt day after graduation.
STOP THE LYING ABOUT THE WONDERFUL NUSING JOB OPPORTUNITY!!! YOU ARE FINANCIALLY RUINING PEOPLE!!!! HOW IRRESPONSIBLE CAN NUSING BE!!!
I think the projections of the nursing shortage are to culminate in 2020 when most 50+ nurses will have to retire or not have jobs that will fit their profiles/physical abilities and pending changes in BSN requirements. But it's all conjecture at this point. This economist projects that until nurses retire there will be a squeeze on hiring for new nurses and considers it a "bubble", but the older nurses are having to defer retirement due to the economic climate.ANA Health Care Economist Peter McMenamin on the Nursing Shortage Outlook
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Guttercat, ASN, RN
1,353 Posts
Yup. Happening here in the layoffs/firings/restructuring. I keep seeing people mysteriously disappearing...they find a way to get you gone. Lots of shiny, new (and cheaper) faces keep popping up though...
Talk about going to work with a target on your back.