Do you think you are adequately compensated in your job as a nurse?

patjohn86 · Jan 9, 2008

For the amount of work we do and the way they seem to take pride in understaffing us, no, they are not even close in compensation. I have only been a nurse for a year, but I am almost 50 years old. I know that a new grad such as myself is not going to make top dollar, but after more than a year on the job, I am starting to lose my zest for what I got into this field for in the first place, to take care of people and make them feel better. I have a gift for making people smile and forgetting their troubles if only for a little while, but with staffing the way it is, I don't get to spend enough time with my patients. Maybe it is the place I work. I hope so because I really enjoy working with people and trying to make a difference in their lives. Time will tell.

In reply to 07rn2b, I think we work for the same large system in NE Ohio. I interviewed with a rehab center yesterday and they are starting off at 24.50 for 1 year exp. for an 8 hour shift basically passing meds. Something is wrong with this picture.

allnurses Guide · Jan 9, 2008

I make approx 7,000 a month (84,000 yr) which only 4,300 is taxable. This is after 6yrs in the USAF. Normally, we get approx a 3% cost of living raise each year, plus 3-6% raise every other year, and raises with every promotion.

It is a trade off, but I can't complain about the compensation or the benefits.

siggie13 · Jan 9, 2008

:cheers:

I make approx 7,000 a month (84,000 yr) which only 4,300 is taxable. This is after 6yrs in the USAF. Normally, we get approx a 3% cost of living raise each year, plus 3-6% raise every other year, and raises with every promotion.
It is a trade off, but I can't complain about the compensation or the benefits.

Just alittle advice: I was in the AF for three years and then got out. If I knew then what I know now, I would have stayed in for 20 years mininum and gotten out with a great pension. Think about it.

allnurses Guide · Jan 9, 2008

:cheers:
Just alittle advice: I was in the AF for three years and then got out. If I knew then what I know now, I would have stayed in for 20 years mininum and gotten out with a great pension. Think about it.

I can't get out till 6/2014, if all goes well I will graduate and have my CRNA in two more years courtsey of the USAF. When my payback is over I am seriously considering switching USPHS d/t promotion problems with nurses in the USAF.

siggie13 · Jan 9, 2008

I can't get out till 6/2014, if all goes well I will graduate and have my CRNA in two more years courtsey of the USAF. When my payback is over I am seriously considering switching USPHS d/t promotion problems with nurses in the USAF.

Good for you!! I, personally, went to 10 years of college on good ole Uncle Sam after I got out. Would not trade my experience in the service for anything.

07rn2b · Jan 9, 2008

Patjohn, we probably do work for the same system. Let's face it, where we are, there are really only two choices. I don't believe that one is better than the other. I'm only 36 and have been at this for not even a year. When I started this career, I felt young, but feel older every day that I go to work. EVerything about it wears me down...the staffing issues; the resistance that we get from the techs on our floor; the patients--some, not all; the fighting amongst the nurses in my unit, and the demands placed on us by our employer. I'm tethered to this system for another year due to a loan they gave me for school, but I'm already looking for a way out and into something else.

nursing is a joke · Jan 9, 2008

Hi and forgive me for giving you the facts about nursing as I see them I have been in critical care for six years now. This is what being a nurse is all about.

I went to school for four or five years....... paid $50,000 in tuiton and board (which I have to pay back for 30 years) Got a very skilled and high education with BSN in critical care. So that I could:

Be overworked while being under paid.

BE Expected to work overtime without getting paid for it.

Be Expected to be held hostage to a beeper ( over the weekends ) without being compensated for it.

Being placed in an environment that is begging me to make a mistake because of the understaffing........... and it WORKS!!! Mistakes ARE made....... and luckily...... the entire weight of the institution comes down on the nurses head while they take no responsibility for setting up the environment in such a way that is begging for the mistake in the first place.

Work in a loving and caring environment where everyone is friends and no one stabs anyone else in the back.

Be part of a culture where people eat their own young alive.

Work in an insitution where I know the guy mopping the floor is probably making more money than I am. Boy that is a moral booster!! And makes me eager to come back to work!!

Nursing is a lovely and compassionate line of work, I am glad that I spent all that time and money so that I could earn a degree that would give me the priviage of being a volunteer.

And last but not least....... the amusment I receive by watching the leadership in nursing scratching their heads ( and they are very serious about it) wondering why in the world there is a nursing shortage.

I know why there is a nursing shortage. You want to know?

Go into your bathroom and take a good hard look in the mirror for 10 minutes........ and there's your answer!!

Who would want to work in the field that you put up with and go along with and don't do anything about the shabby treatment and lack of pay for your skills that you put up with?

Would you recommend nursing to your best friend? If not, then why do you settle for this insanity? Why do you keep silent? Why are you so passive?

I don't put up with it........ and I am enemy number one; a trouble maker.

How dare I:

Not do the work of two and not even get paid for one!!! I am supposed to keep my mouth shut and be happy I have a job at all!! Not work overtime for nothing? Not twist myself into a pretzle and kiss my behind for the amusment of my manager? Stick up for myself when I get written up for something I did not do? Work in an environment that is grossly understaffed and actually speak up about it!!??!!

HOW DARE ME!!!!

Ahhhhh........ that is why I became a nurse.

My bank, who holds my mortgage, does not care that I'm a good person who wants to help others. The warm and fuzzy feeling I get in my chest, when I help others, does not pay the mortgage. ( I always hear, when I speak out,........ that there is an exchange when you are a nurse...... and that exchange is the wonderfull feeling you get for helping others).

Really?? Tell that to my bank who has no problem taking my house away regardless of how NICE I am.

What in the world is the matter with nurses??

Without nurses there would be no health care....... just like without soldiers there would be no army or victory. Do you think that if soldiers were treated the way nurses are that thier moral would be high enough to even want to fight? Let alone win? Without us..... there is nothing.

I'll prove it.......... let's get every nurse in America to not show up for work tomorrow.

What do you think would happen to healthcare in this country? It would crumble like a house of cards. Kind a like the way nurses are now when they are looked at crooked by their managers.

Which brings up another point: the selective remembering by the nurse managers is astounding. They had it even worse than we do....... and they had all the complaints and arguments that we new nurses have now. But they have forgotten where they came from and how horrible it was for them. And who can blame them? I can understand why someone making a six figure salary.... that took 20 years to accomplish, would not badmouth the insitution providing that salary. So I must forgive them. But it is still astonishing to me........ they have forgotten where they came from. But I guess they feel we have to pay our dues like they did.

But times are different now. Nursing is not a second income occupation anymore. We cannot be satisfied with our pitiful salaries while being forced to work like dogs.

I'm stunned by the passivenes of very highly educated people who let others step all over them for a living. Nursing, Unfortunetly, IS a joke. It's about millionairs making more millions at the expense of putting our licenses at risk and the lives of the patients at risk to save a couple of pennies. ( from a millionair's perspective; a couple of hundred thousand dollars is pennies) It's pathetic.

Don't deny it fellow nurses........ you know what I'm talking about.

The last time I spoke like this they took down my thread without explanation.

I wonder if they will do it again?

Thanks for letting me exercise my right to free speech and tell it like it is.

This forum does alllow free speech; does it not?

Jessi RN.......... This has been my experience in nursing. You don't hear abou this part of the culture. It's very unfortunate. If I did it all over again I would not have become a nurse. Unless you are willing to work like a dog and get paid very little and the satisfaction of helping others is worth losing your house for...... than go for it.

If not...... think twice.

Best of luck

allnurses Guide · Jan 9, 2008

Nrsg is a joke,

You know as a civilian nurse you have the most valuable form of expression....You Can Quit!

Sometimes in a civilian setting the only thing that managers notice is a high turnover rate. It costs the facility lots of money to rehire/orient nurses.

You can choose where you work! Nursing has its' problems, but like any other job there are bad places to work and good ones.

What it all comes down to in the end is it is your nursing career...not your nurse managers/hospital administrators or anyone else, you make the decision ultimately on how you will be treated/where you will work/how much you will work etc.

Good Luck I hope you have a better day/shift tomorrow!

tinygeezers · Jan 9, 2008

I believe qualified nurses should get at least 60 bucks/hr. That is what I charged doing consulting 10 years ago.

nursing is a joke - has a lot of relevant points. What I want to say is we are professionals. I am a professional. I don't work for the hospital. I work for myself. I provide RN services to a hospital. I choose the hospital. I choose the unit. I choose the shift. I choose to decide if the compensation package is acceptable. I choose to analyze the working conditions to determine if they are acceptable. I choose to continue or terminate my association with a facility as I deem fit. I choose. If I don't like something, and I cannot change it, then I vote with my feet and move on. The fact that I can choose my profession and it's circumstances makes me a professional.

I feel we need to be compensated better, but I am certainly not a victim. Look around. How many professions are this mobile? I have moved many times over 25 years for good reasons. People ask why my wife and I have moved. Our standard response is, "Because we can." No profession is as mobile as this one. Live in a 'compact' state and you can work in something like 20 other states without license hassles. With mobility you can find the situation that works for you. Right hospital, right unit, right shift, right compensation, right cost of living, right school district for your kids, right weather, whatever. If you can't get it right where you are, then stand up for yourself and find a better situation. You are a professional. Treat yourself like a professional. Act like a professional.

Doug

(posting on my wife's ID. She's NICU and I'm MICU.)

gerry79 · Jan 9, 2008

Its all relative.. For the responsibility that we hold, no, we are not paid enough. But in my area (Boston), my Associates Degree pays me more than almost all of my friends with Bachelors, and more than a few with their Masters. In their eyes I have flexibility that they can only dream of. I have been a nurse for 10 months, work 12 days a month (three twelves) and made over $70,000 (as per my W2) without overtime and can earn a substantial amount more if I worked overtime. My friends marvel at the amount of time that I have off and the money that I make. A friend of mine, who is an accountant, pro rated my salary to be about $98,000 a year if I worked the hours that he does (about 56 a week) and he earns a little more than I do after 5 years at his current job.

But the flip side of the story (which my friends fail to realize) is that I don't work a natural schedule. I work every weekend (I chose the weekend program), must deal with demanding patients, and rude family members, often work in dangerous conditions (body fluids, violent patients, short staffing...), and that nursing is physically demanding. We are in a constant battle with management for proper staffing, and in my opinion the nursing profession does not value education. My facility pays ADN and BSN nurses the same, yet grandstand on the need for higher education in nursing.

So... yes, I feel we a nurses are underpaid for what is expected of us. Now to the lay person nurses make a lot of money (I hear that so often I want to puke). But until the lay person is involved a code at 0230 in the morning with little support staff, or left holding the bag after the doctor tells the patient "you can go home" without doing the discharge paper work or explaining the discharge process to the patient (while the patient hovers at the nurses station impatiently while I am trying finalize to discharge paper work), or maligned by the patient for taking 5 minute to answer the call bell to fluff a pillow, people just wont understand...

Gerry

patjohn86 · Jan 9, 2008

07rn2b, it may even be the same hospital. MMH sound familiar. I to am in my last year of my contract. I won't say I definately will leave next year, but I am looking for something else. Like I said, I interviewed yesterday for a prn position at a rehab facility just to see what it is like. Everyone tells me I won't like it but how will I know if I don't try. My brother keeps pushing me towards Metro because of the public retirement but there may be issues with that also because I have so many years in social security already. Besides, I don't want to go downtown. The one thing I do have going for me is except for a few, I really do love working with the people I work with. We seem to have a good team mentality with most. There are always going to be some slackers. I just wish they would staff us properly on a daily basis. Good luck to you and keep your chin up. It is still the hardest job you will ever love.

*TK8 · Jan 10, 2008

I choose the hospital. I choose the unit. I choose the shift. I choose to decide if the compensation package is acceptable. I choose to analyze the working conditions to determine if they are acceptable. I choose to continue or terminate my association with a facility as I deem fit. I choose. If I don't like something, and I cannot change it, then I vote with my feet and move on. The fact that I can choose my profession and it's circumstances makes me a professional. I feel we need to be compensated better, but I am certainly not a victim.

Thank you Doug for this response. I've always wondered why people complained about their jobs and didn't understand why people stayed in their job if they felt they weren't compensated enough to do their job. I used to be a child care worker with abused and neglected children and adolescents and while it's not nursing I knew I wasn't getting paid enough to do what they were asking me to do. The only break I had was to go to the bathroom and I was lucky if a child didn't knock on the door to ask me to do something for them. I guess my point is with no matter what industry you work in, if you feel that you are not valued... do yourself a favor...stand up for yourself and find a position and you think makes you feel happy and valued. While I say this I know that not everyone is in the position to do this, but you should find the time whenever possible to make your life better for you and your family.