I would like to first say that I come from a family full of nurses, both sides (so I've seen the fight to show that nursing is a professional field first-hand, 1970's onward).
I also have factory worker relatives, and I have respect for hard working people. I am not trying to diss on someone who works in a factory -- it's difficult and honest work. It's not an easy way to make ends meet.
However, where I live in Ohio, something strange is happening. All the trade schools, community colleges and even some universities are push, push, pushing displaced factory and auto workers into nursing due to (you guessed it) "guaranteed employment, plenty of jobs etc." (yeah, RIGHT!)
There's practically an LPN or RN evening/weekend program on every corner, and all the websites show a guy (God forbid they show a female nurse) who lost his job in the auto plant last week in scrubs, putting up an IV or something like that (you should surf the web and see some for yourselves!). Some of these guys look kind of unkempt or need a shave (sorry, not trying to be mean!).
Of course I am very happy for someone who gets a new career in this terrible recession, and works hard to earn a nursing credential. That deserves recognition and respect. But sometimes I wonder if the profession of nursing, which has fought so hard since the 1970's to be considered a white-collar, professional occupation, is going to suffer a big image hit due to these fly-by-night colleges PUSHING "get your RN, get your LPN, make money" to literally everyone with a pulse and then flooooooding the market.
There are lots of news stories up here in Ohio that contribute to this image of "Anyone can do it! Easy money!" They always interview a guy who barely graduated from high school, got laid off from the factory, uses poor grammar, and now he almost has his RN license.
Again -- that's is wonderful for him, and I respect that. If he can pass the courses and the tests, kudos to him! He deserves his success! But it worries me that this situation is going to make nursing look like a non-professional occupation in the future.
People should not go into anything just for the money, especially nursing. You need to have a passion. There are no sure-fire recession-proof jobs anymore; it really doesn't matter what you choose in college (I know first-hand due to a derailed librarian career that was booming in 2000). So, choose your calling!
I hope I did not offend anyone. I just wonder what will happen in the future. My aunt was the head nurse in a large hospital in Columbus, and she was one of those people who fought like hell to let people know that nursing is a professional medical occupation -- not a glorified bottom-wiping job!
Nurses know as much or MORE than doctors. I worry that people are going to forget this.
Are the trade schools and community colleges being fair to the students when they tell them that the profession is "recession proof with lots of jobs"? They all post on their websites that the graduates have "100 percent placement" -- that's B.S. and we all know it!
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I know it is not true for every school, but my program has actually had a 100% NCLEX pass rate for several years now. All of our December graduates already have jobs. I was surprised to see so many nurses on here without jobs. I guess every area is different. Good luck to all of you, and keep your fingers crossed for me! I started my first semester this weeks!
If these schools really are popping up on every corner, I wonder what the quality of the graduate is. Sure we all pass the same NCLEX, but the NCLEX is the bare minimum. Are the graduates of these "fly-by-night" schools barely passing? Are they really getting a quality education? Who are their teachers, what are their clinical situations like? ...
And if the education is really questionable, do you want to be the hiring manager having to orient these people? No wonder hospitals aren't hiring new grads. Sounds like a loose-loose situation to me.
These are the important questions. Lots of schools meet the BON minimum requirements to be approved to operate, but that doesn't mean they are offering a high quality (or even adequate) nursing education. Many of the for-profit, proprietary voc schools are starting to offer RN programs because they figure that's where the big bucks are -- and a lot of these schools are known to be little more than scams to collect federal student loan $$$ from unsuspecting would-be students. Do you really think they've suddenly "gotten religion" now that they're offering nursing programs?
Be anxious about nothing. Let your soul be at peace because you really have no control as it is God who is in control. We really can not do anything about the nursing degree promotion. Anyone going into nursing for money and not having the heart for it will either flunk right out of school or will not make it very far in their careers. Stop worrying. This is really out of your control. We might actually get some good nurses out of this and improve our health care systems. These individuals have a different background and experience which we really do not know if it will ultimately give us the acknowledgement that we rightfully deserve. Nonetheless there is a perfect plan by the designer and creator of our living quarters . Let destiny take its course.
ha- im not insulted- i took that route too- worked for GM until they sent everything to mexico. Funny, before I worked there, I had intended to go to school for rad tech. Never finished- why? Because that factory job had full paid benefits, retirement, and started at a rate triple minimum wage back in '85.Why the heck should I go to school, when I had a good paying job. Well, fast forward to 2002- guess what, our jobs went bye bye- ohoh, time to go to back to school. My friend wanted to be a maternity nurse- I thought, what the heck, my pre-req's for RT also counted for AAS nursing. I graduated with a 3.4 avg. I can see how the schools have the factory mentality of shooshing you thru school- heck- we have 5 colleges in the vicinity spitting out nurses twice a year. Now tell me, the schools didnt jump on that bandwagon when they saw all( and I mean ALL) the manufacturing industry leave the area. Thing is , the schools dont give a reality of what a nursing job is. Ive been nursing in med/tele for 5 years now. Have always gotten good reviews from my supervisor. My colleages come up to me to ask opinions on things. I have precepted a few new grads/students. You know what? I woudl give my right arm( oh wait, that wouldnt work on the line) to have that factory job back. Why? because a nurse is nothing more than a glorified waitress with a 2 year degree in a medical field, and a whole lot of responsibility that goes along with it. This is all stemming from the new customer service focus that the hospitals are now having. I'm sure you can find threads on it, I wont go into it now.I'm sure you must be seeing how many nurses are crying to get out of the hospital setting- due to being treated like a piece of expendable garbage. Why? Because the market is saturated- the employer knows there a new grad waiting behind them. I'm sure you've seen the threads of how nurses with experience are not valued anymore( by the company , that is)
I guess my point is the colleges are seeing a way to pull in the bucks by advertising the next "guaranteed " job. If more people saw the way things REALLY are right now, no one in their right mind would go into nursing school.
I happen to think a lot of people that are lining up to become nurses are going to be telling this same story in the not to distant future. Most people who work in other fields will be shocked to find out how poorly management treats most healthcare workers. My niece who was a barmaid before she became a nurse said that as a barmaid she was always treated like a human being. She said she she went through a deep period of emotional shock when she first found that she was being treated like "garbage" just like the author of this post describes.
What I would like to know is what in the world a useless, good for nothing, poorly dressed FAILED librarian could ever offer the prestigious, challenging field of professional nursing?
Oh, and how did that go...oh yes: "Sorry, not trying to be mean."
Look, some ex-factory workers have made fantastic nurses, and some of them never made it through. One of the best nurses I ever saw work was a crane operator before he got his LPN, then later his BSN.
How am I a "failed" librarian? I work as a librarian right now, and make over 60k a year. I want to go into nursing for the love of the profession.
LOL, "poorly dressed", that's a good one.
Try reading my OP again. I think you are being very defensive (not to mention OT and inappropriate).
If these schools really are popping up on every corner, I wonder what the quality of the graduate is. Sure we all pass the same NCLEX, but the NCLEX is the bare minimum. Are the graduates of these "fly-by-night" schools barely passing? Are they really getting a quality education? Who are their teachers, what are their clinical situations like?
I graduated from a major university and there is a glut of RN programs in my city. I know that clinical sites were scarce. For OB, we have three hospitals that deliver babies. We had one day of clinical in a hospital. They just can't allow nursing students in from all the schools around all the time. Psych was a similar story. A lot of students were at apartment complexes that serve the mentally ill. Because we only have three psych hospitals.
And if the education is really questionable, do you want to be the hiring manager having to orient these people? No wonder hospitals aren't hiring new grads. Sounds like a loose-loose situation to me.
This is exactly what I was trying to say ... thank you.
These are the important questions. Lots of schools meet the BON minimum requirements to be approved to operate, but that doesn't mean they are offering a high quality (or even adequate) nursing education. Many of the for-profit, proprietary voc schools are starting to offer RN programs because they figure that's where the big bucks are -- and a lot of these schools are known to be little more than scams to collect federal student loan $$$ from unsuspecting would-be students. Do you really think they've suddenly "gotten religion" now that they're offering nursing programs?
Exactly! You should see some of these so-called "nursing schools" in Ohio ... !
...Maybe it's an Ohio thing ... the advertising out here is enough to make you crazy. Flooding the market and flat-out lying to prospective students is not a good thing. Maybe you just have to live here and see it to believe it.
It's not an Ohio thing. It's an everywhere thing, and there are threads aplenty on this board dealing with just this issue. Many of those threads are VERY recent, recent enough that you'd have seen them.
However, back to something many responders to your post are taking issue with. When I read through your first post in this thread the first time, I also saw someone with a chip on her shoulder who saw "factory workers" and the great unkempt as something less than she. You have denied that, and that's fine, but please know that the more you try to defend your point of view, the more you shoot yourself in the foot. It takes all kinds people, and all kinds of people have all kinds of diversity. My family is full to the brim with college graduates from Associate's degrees to PhD's. We can be a scruffy lot. And, we ate lots of government cheese, too
i still dont get were the OP was at all insulting to anyone.......slightly blunt perhaps, but it is about time for some of that. Is the inarticulate person what YOU want to see as an ad for nursing?
What I see her showing is how the media in that area is protraying factory workers, not her own opinion of them. She's has described the people who the advertisers are using to market their product. The product is a vocational degree. She asking how that image of nursing a a vocation instead of a profession being tauted in the media going to damage the fight for nursing to be viewed more as a profession. And it's a valid question. Afterall you don't see law schools, medical schools, and engineering schools suddenly popping up on every corner trying to get people to find a new career in two short years. (Even though some of these MBA programs seem like that.)
I don't see her post as about the factory workers at all, but about if and how these shady schools are damaging nursing.
What I see her showing is how the media in that area is protraying factory workers, not her own opinion of them. She's has described the people who the advertisers are using to market their product. The product is a vocational degree. She asking how that image of nursing a a vocation instead of a profession being tauted in the media going to damage the fight for nursing to be viewed more as a profession. And it's a valid question. Afterall you don't see law schools, medical schools, and engineering schools suddenly popping up on every corner trying to get people to find a new career in two short years. (Even though some of these MBA programs seem like that.)
I don't see her post as about the factory workers at all, but about if and how these shady schools are damaging nursing.
I kind of see it as...well, in the commercials, they're going for the whole "this bum did it, so can you!" kind of appearance, thus the unshaven/unkept/etc appearances.
I'm glad to see that a lot of you are getting my points. Thank you! I'm a plain-speaking person; I guess you get to be that way after almost 40 years on this earth.
wannalook
1 Post
I know it is not true for every school, but my program has actually had a 100% NCLEX pass rate for several years now. All of our December graduates already have jobs. I was surprised to see so many nurses on here without jobs. I guess every area is different. Good luck to all of you, and keep your fingers crossed for me! I started my first semester this weeks!