Everyone seems to be turning to nursing. I remember way back when (5 years ago) when nursing was a calling. There were still other jobs a person could do and make a living--like heating and air conditioning. Now nursing is a lifeboat--a recesion-proof job that anyone and everyone is considering.
I see post after post in here of people who have no experience, no particular desire, and no particular aptitude for nursing inquiring about nursing as a job. They need something to pay the bills. I just went to a restaurant tonight, and two of our waiters are starting nursing school.
Let's face it, with the coming depression, nursing wages are attractive. So here's a prediction, please tell me if you agree or disagree:
Nursing boards will start requiring a 4-year degree to sit for the NCLEX.
The Nursing shortage is going to end in about 3 years; in five there will be a glut of nurses and getting a job will be about like getting a job as an NP is now.
Travel agencies will cease to exist and agency nursing will go the way of the way of the dinosaur.
Without unions, hospitals will force nurses to take about 14 patients a shift and will simply fire those who won't do it.
Valerie Salva, I've been working in healthcare for 10 years. Not as a nurse but right along side 'em. My employer doesn't intentionally understaff nurses and neither have the other facilities I've worked in. I'm not sure where you are but it sounds like you're working for Walmart. I recently switched positions and took a HUGE paycut (you want to talk to me about going into this field for the money? I made more than an entry-level nurse before.) to become a nurse TECH. Hmmm.... no ego there!
$30/hr is nice but it isn't exactly a goldmine unless you're used to making very little. Some of us are pursuing nursing for career expansion and better opportunities, not because we're looking for our pie in the sky. Taking care of patients is a learned skill, not just a "calling", and there are many of us, especially those with a little life experience beneath us that just know we can do this job. And yes, it IS a job. No, I would absolutely NOT do this for free, thanks.
I don't know whose post you are responding to as far as nursing being a "calling" or being willing to do it for free, but I have never said or implied anything of the kind.
Nursing isn't a calling for me and never has been.
As far as pay goes, I provide my nursing services the the highest bidder.
Working "right along side" nurses doesn't give you a nurse's perspective.
My position is the the so-called nursing shortage is fictional, and always has been- and I found it really presumptuous and rediculous for a student to call an experienced nurse's (the OP) viewpoint "clueless."
I don't know whose post you are responding to as far as nursing being a "calling" or being willing to do it for free, but I have never said or implied anything of the kind.
Nursing isn't a calling for me and never has been.
As far as pay goes, I provide my nursing services the the highest bidder.
Working "right along side" nurses doesn't give you a nurse's perspective.
My position is the the so-called nursing shortage is fictional, and always has been- and I found it really presumptuous and rediculous for a student to call an experienced nurse's (the OP) viewpoint "clueless."
Thank you. It's funny that someone who made more than a nurse and knew all about the nursing profession would choose to come down the ladder like that...
THE UNIVERSE IS CONSPIRING TO DO GOOD THINGS FOR ME.
I love that.
Anyways, I read the 17 pages of this thread. I think that the "shortage" is still real, and will likely always be there under our health care model. Do I mean that it is going to be easy to find a job right away? No. But as an employee in other industries, I can tell you that there were absolutely ZERO ads in the paper for any job that I ever got in my 20 years of being employed. Zero. I never got a job out of a newspaper or ad. I fought tooth and nail for my job, and when I got it, worked to keep it.
I think nursing has been spoiled with the "shortage" moniker. It is easy to see that we will always need nurses. People are getting older, and being older longer, and nurses are "people" too. This requires more nursing.
As long as we in our profession fight for the retention of our services by promoting health, and not just treating illness, we will always have an important, if not critical function in our society. I see this as a key point when science and technology begins to reward our modern society with cures for many of our illnesses. Why can't we be nurses in other venues besides in hospitals and during times of illness? Why are we limiting our deployable skills to "half of the apple"? Maintenance, promotion and enjoyment/realization of all aspects of health is already at the core of our professional act, so why isn't it in practice? Because we don't really believe it ourselves. Maybe we got so hammered down with compliance, Press Ganey’s, malpractice insurance, mandatory overtime, no lunch breaks, for profit facilities that look only to one aspect of health (fiscal), to realize what our function in society is...
I say, we start figuring out as nurses how to redefine our model to emphasize the need for health in our society and the need for our people to embrace it.
Would we be nurses if there was no need for money? In it's current direction? Absolutely not. But why not? Because we have allowed what nursing is be defined by people outside of nursing.
My grandmother continues to volunteer herself as a teacher. This is because teachers have been allowed to define what teaching is (at least in her geographic and professional area), and she feels that her work is invaluable to society, and to herself as a person. I realize this is not always the case, but it is an example of true satisfaction from a professional level, and how it is to be achieved. I have no specific answers of course, but if my betters were able to bring what they all have within them to whatever board of nursing or body that represents us (or soon to be us in my case), and demand a better direction, and the teeth to get it done, we would be staring this "economic situation" dead in the eye, instead of cowering from it.
My position is the the so-called nursing shortage is fictional, and always has been- and I found it really presumptuous and rediculous for a student to call an experienced nurse's (the OP) viewpoint "clueless."
Thank you, Valerie. I think Holistic has to hope I am clueless, and I understand that. I'm working. And I kind of hope I'm clueless as well. Because if I'm on target (And since you agree, I think I can say if we are on target.), it doesn't bode well for anyone.
I think I see where you are coming from that a student calls a working nurse clueless on the topic of the nursing profession. I take offense at that as well. It's like one tech I heard bragging once that they could do everything the nurse could do, they just couldn't write in the chart. Kind of sad, really.
But I can't throw stones. When I was a student nurse, I had a lot more opinion than wisdom and I threw it around in forums like this and made a fool out of myself. Now, I realize that.
Where else right now can you make 30 dollars an hour
There is a Toyota manufacturing plant about 15 mins from my house that pays that much if you've worked there 3-4 years. They start around $20/hr I think. And there is no degree required.
There is a Toyota manufacturing plant about 15 mins from my house that pays that much if you've worked tehre 3-4 years. They start around $20/hr I think. And there is no degree required.
You are joking, right? I'm surprised you even compare the two on the day when Toyota's credit rating just got dropped from AAA to AA. Look, computer techs make great money, too. If you can get a job. Stock brokers make way more than nurses--if you can get a job. The obese high school drop out on the line at GM makes more than most nurses--until that is--right now. It does no good to talk about the obscene amount of money that can be made in the dot-com sector if there is no work to be had in it.
And that's my point. Get ready to put some extra desk-chairs in the A&P 1 classroom for the Toyota and GM employees, because here they come!
My position is the the so-called nursing shortage is fictional, and always has been- and I found it really presumptuous and rediculous for a student to call an experienced nurse's (the OP) viewpoint "clueless."
My poli sci prof said that the health care shortage is artificial. When I thought about it, I had to agree. That was the one value to the gen ed requirements.
I still think the whole scare here is similar to the y2k scare and the more recent avian flu scare. It is really a temporary thing.
I would have hoped that alternative energy is viable, but until the finite resource of fossil fuels is completely depleted, we'll stick with what worked for our parents.
The new technology on the horizon, as I see it. Possible or not, it is believable, and that's all you need, is biotech. The problem is finding which company will be the leader and which companies will survive.
OK, you don't like the Toyota examples, even though after the economy recovers, which it will, those jobs will be hot.
IT- every busines uses computers, and IT techs make good money. You can't transfer jobs like networking overseas. My brother works in IT , makes about $50K w/ a tech school cert. A friend in IT with a bachelor's makes $70K in Alabama, so there is money to be made.
Paralegal- usually requires 0-2 years of school, pays about $45-50K/year after a few years, and as you pointed out, there is no shortgage of lawyers.
Insurance Salesman - people need insurance. a good salesman can make big money in insurance, with only a sttae cert. prgoram that lasts a few months
Realtor- a good realtor can make money even in a down economy. They only have to take 1 class then get a license. On a $200K house, at 3% comission, they make about $6K. You could sell a house every 2 months and live a decent life. When the economy turns around in a few years, that will be a boooming business again. Houses in my neighborhood are selling after 2-3 weeks on the market.
My point is that there are lots of careers available that pay well. Nursing is not the end-all-be-all of good paying, low-mid education careers. There may be an influx of people taking A&P, but after the CNA class that all the local colleges require for acceptance into the nursing program, a lot of people will take another route.
I don't mean this to be argumentative, but look at what you just said: it's a dichotomy. "We will move forward." "You don't know what the future holds."
I say we won't; you say we will, but neither of us actually knows. Nevertheless, I say I can't see anything, and you are, in effect, saying you see something that isn't there.
Well, the difference between us is that I like to think positively about the future and you like to think negatively. Neither one of us know the future, you are right. But having hopeful and positive attitude about what the future holds is not a bad thing. A negative attitude about how we are all doomed and there is nothing left to advance to, there is nothing better than what we have now that could be created, we might as well just stop living now because the future holds nothing good for us. Your attitude is not only closed minded, but it's going to make you a very unhappy person and everyone that has to be around you unhappy as well. Negativity never got anybody anywhere. Hope is a much better virtue to have.
You say I'm seeing something that isn't there? I'm not predicting it, I'm hoping for it. You are saying that it could not happen, no way no how, totally writing it off as a joke that something could power your car as much as your diesel fuel. You don't know that. The beginning stages of the technology are already there. Electric cars have already been created. Homes are already being powered completely by the sun and towns powered by wind. The technology can be advanced and I believe it will be. Maybe not in your lifetime (I don't know how old you are), but hopefully in my lifetime I will be able to see this future unfold. If you look at the trend of human civilization through history, you will see that my standpoint is closer to reality than your own. Human civilization has only progressed, not stayed stagnant. New ideas are constantly being formed, new inventions being made, new dreams to be fullfilled. Don't underestimate the power of the human mind. We have come a long way, just from a hundred years ago. Do you think the people of that day thought we would have the technologies that we have today just in a hundred years? Think about it.
"A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future."
if we have a sudden turn around in the economy as some of the pie-in-the-sky posters seem to think is going to occur with the amazing inventions that will come as we all go green
by the way, i never said that i thought this would all happen suddenly or even in the next few years....and once again, at one time the notion of flying to the moon was a joke as well. it was a "pie in the sky" idea.
Specializes in telemetry, med-surg, home health, psych.
I'm sorry but not only is the original post clueless (aging population, aging nurses, not enough schools and so on...) but I wonder why I keep seeing so many people lamenting the fact that so many others are suddenly interested in nursing. So what? So what if there are people considering nursing who would not have considered it before? We need nurses! The shortage is coming, folks. We need to find nurses somehow. I'm sorry but after listening to all of the complaining about under-staffing, etc, you'd think you'd be happy that more people were contemplating the field!
And what's all of this about people choosing not to seek care because they don't have the income, insurance, etc? Where have you been? The baby boomers are getting older...... They are going to need care regardless of income, etc. This is part of the nursing shorting as previously listed. I'm not sure we're living in the same country.
the understaffing does not stem from the presumption that there are not enough nurses......it is caused by the corp. that own the hospitals and will not hire enough nurses....I am in a place now that has froze hiring....
we are usually understaffed....have seen this case as ongoing....
Specializes in telemetry, med-surg, home health, psych.
I do not believe there is a nursing shortage !!!!! My friend is a DON and has told me she gets more applications than you can imagine...if corps. would hire adequate staff then maybe, possibly, there would be a shortage...but they are not going to do this....we wil continue to work understaffed and as long as we do this there will be no changes made....the almighty $$, greed, is the only thing that these execs are interested in....
Valerie Salva, BSN, RN
1,793 Posts
I don't know whose post you are responding to as far as nursing being a "calling" or being willing to do it for free, but I have never said or implied anything of the kind.
Nursing isn't a calling for me and never has been.
As far as pay goes, I provide my nursing services the the highest bidder.
Working "right along side" nurses doesn't give you a nurse's perspective.
My position is the the so-called nursing shortage is fictional, and always has been- and I found it really presumptuous and rediculous for a student to call an experienced nurse's (the OP) viewpoint "clueless."