Are the new nurses to blame

Nurses General Nursing

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I am starting this thread to address the issue of more experienced RN's complaining about new grads entering the field already knowing they will jump to graduate school after few years. Who is to blame them? I know they should be good RN's and stay inspite the horrible enviorinment.:rolleyes:

I am not a real new, Id like to call myself "fresh" :D(2 years) and plan on staying in bedside at least 5 years but when I see the nurses that have been there for 10 years I see beautiful women who are also supersmart, but many of them are limping, have back issues, hate their job but cant move due to senior pay and feel they are too invested to move to grad school. If any of them need surgery to fix the bad knee usually they end up being let go and we know no one will bend backward to hire you at that point.

I think we should not blame the new grads but should look at the nurisng enviornment and how difficult it can be to be a bedside nurse. I know many 2,3 year RN's who are deadly affraid to ask for nursing references because they will be chewed up. Lets change the units so the new nurses will love staying here and future nursing shortage, poof, might dissapear.(well, I admit few other things are in play)

1. Dont scare the new grads away, but give a realistic view of bedside.

2. Help eachother

3.If they decide to go, say good luck and mean it.

Question: What else can we do to keep the newly graduated nursing forces in bedside?

If we all get Christmas/New Years off and three weeks in the summer, who will take care of anyone? Sorry, we're closed, have your baby, surgery elsewhere isn't going to cut it.

I mean how do European nations manage? Traditionally they have far longer vacation entitlements than North Americans.

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Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice.
Actually interestingly ...many of we older ones perceive nursing to have been more 'professional' in the old days.

In the 'old days' .....I had better ratios/more aides/less paperwork/more control/more autonomy.

Now I'm just a little nurse-person slaving away :crying2:

I can see your point here.

Tait

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Specializes in Peds, PACU, ICU, ER, OB, MED-Surg,.

I don't think we can generalize about new nurses or senior nurses. We all start off wanting to do what is best for the patient. Because of environments/rules beyond our control we are not allowed to spend as much time at the bedside or do the job we truly want to do.

Until nurse/patient ratio's are set by someone other than the hospital themselves we will not get the bedside we desire and the patients need. Instead of watching whether a hospital fit tests all personnel yearly for TB masks, JCAHO needs to delve deeper and set reimbursment on patient ratio's, satisfaction, and sentinel events.

If a hospital is no longer sanctioned by JCAHO that is a "big" slice of their revenue. I think we would rapidly see a change in environment at the bedside.

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Specializes in acute care.
OMG I loove that idea. Creating a web site that does RN to RN hospital rating, or even doing it here. Where RN's can go to their insitution and annonumously post good and bad things about their unit, turnover, staffing ETC. Gives you a good idea if you want to work there or not..If employers know this kind of info exsists they might be more careful how they treat us. Just an idea.

Here is what I found:

http://www.nursyz.com/stateindex.php

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Specializes in LTC/Skilled Care/Rehab.

I would love to stay at the bedside but it is so stressful! I work in LTC and we have 20+ residents each on a skilled nursing unit. I feel like there is no way to possibly do my job right with that patient load. Many of our residents are one step away from a hospital. Most of the nurses I work with pass the 5P meds with the 9P meds. It shouldn't be that way! I love my residents and my job but there is no way I can do this for another 30+ years.

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Specializes in M/S, ICU, ICP.
it is not the patients we are trying to get away from. it is the conditions we have to work under to give good patient care.

i totally agree with you. after 10 years as a cna and then 23 years as the rn at the bedside, i finally hit that wall and burned out a little over a year ago. i tried hard, but the burn out won and i felt as cold and angry inside as some of the patients that were chewing my head off. i love my patients, it's the "system" i hate.

i tried management for about 5 of those years and found out middle management is like a candle burning at both ends. if you are too staff supportive and try to represent what the nurse's need then administration writes you up for not being "a team player." i had such ideals and dreams. i just knew if i became more educated and could move up the ladder in management that i could make positive change for the nurses. i truly believed that my role was to advocate for the staff and that meeting their needs and making things better for the nurse's would automatically improve patient care.

talk about getting burned! management was not my forte' and the changes that i had believed i could make "if i could only get high enough in the food chain" were lost in the jaws of the system and politics of the beast. after management i went back to the bedside, my illusions gone.

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Specializes in neuro/ortho med surge 4.
i totally agree with you. after 10 years as a cna and then 23 years as the rn at the bedside, i finally hit that wall and burned out a little over a year ago. i tried hard, but the burn out won and i felt as cold and angry inside as some of the patients that were chewing my head off. i love my patients, it's the "system" i hate.

i tried management for about 5 of those years and found out middle management is like a candle burning at both ends. if you are too staff supportive and try to represent what the nurse's need then administration writes you up for not being "a team player." i had such ideals and dreams. i just knew if i became more educated and could move up the ladder in management that i could make positive change for the nurses. i truly believed that my role was to advocate for the staff and that meeting their needs and making things better for the nurse's would automatically improve patient care.

talk about getting burned! management was not my forte' and the changes that i had believed i could make "if i could only get high enough in the food chain" were lost in the jaws of the system and politics of the beast. after management i went back to the bedside, my illusions gone.

god bless you.

i could never work in management. management knows that what they ask of us is nearly impossible but are not able to advocate for staff for fear of losing their positions. i could not in good conscience work in management.

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Specializes in ICU-CCRN, CVICU, SRNA.

When I said 3 weeks vacation and holidays off I did state that this is somewhat unrealistic. However with better staffing it might be every other year rather than every year. What I meant is that nurses work so hard they deserve every bonus, perk or time with their family. These are people who routinely sacrfice half of their weekends when most families do things together. Just my :twocents:

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Specializes in cardiac, ICU, education.
What if insurers/payors refused to do business with organizations that had high nurse turnover? Wouldn't that be interesting to watch?

Brilliant idea.

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"OMG I loove that idea. Creating a web site that does RN to RN hospital rating"

I second that idea if nobody has yet.

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Specializes in CVICU, Obs/Gyn, Derm, NICU.
If we all get Christmas/New Years off and three weeks in the summer, who will take care of anyone? Sorry, we're closed, have your baby, surgery elsewhere isn't going to cut it.

I mean how do European nations manage? Traditionally they have far longer vacation entitlements than North Americans.

Well I can only talk about Australia. I have about 6 weeks of holiday so I can explain how we work.

I have a great manager and she bends over backwards to make this happen.

Firstly.....I think it's an awful and very inflexible vacation allocation system you have in the US. I think the seniority thing is just sucky.

In your first year of employment in Australia .... no choice

From second year onward .... everybody submits their requests about 6 months prior to summer period. The manager does her/his best to accommodate everyone. We, in turn, are expected to be flexible and considerate of our coworkers needs.

It will not be possible to have your entire vacation over the summer period.

Every second year, approx half of all staff will have a 2 week vacation block.

The rest of the staff will get some vacation days to string onto their grouped days off (so can end up with more than a week)

No difference for seniority. Everyone has a personal life. Most people have children. Fair's fair

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Specializes in ICU-CCRN, CVICU, SRNA.
"OMG I loove that idea. Creating a web site that does RN to RN hospital rating"

I second that idea if nobody has yet.

http://www.nursyz.com/

From a previous post. It is kind of basic and not many hospitals are rated yet. I did my part and rated the hospitals Ive worked for. Maybe it will take off.

I also come from small european country and everyone gets a month vacation. The RN's do have to take it in blocks of two weeks and if you had it in the summer this year you have to skip next summer. So, yes I am sure it can be better than this but it is up to us to change things.(viva la revolution, lol)

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