I think nurses share some of the blame for the nursing shortage.

Sheri257 · Dec 23, 2005

I honestly don't know where a lot of this is coming from. For every nasty RN I've ever met, be it instructor, clinicals for school, or working on the job, there were 10 really great ones. Granted, the bad experiences tend to stick out more than the good ones because they were more unusual but, whenever I've had a problem with someone I told them in so many words to knock it off ... and they did. That was the end of it. Otherwise, I've had really positive experiences with the vast majority of RN's I've worked with.

The biggest problems I've encountered actually is with management. If the management at a facility sucks then it won't be a good place to work. But that's usually not the RN's fault except for, of course, the few RN's who are in management.

:clown:

RN4NICU, LPN, LVN · Dec 23, 2005

Hostility is not age specific. I almost wish the admin. here would make the "nurses eat their young" phrase a violation of the TOS, that's how irritating it is to me. It is a myth that gets perpetuated when a few people have bad experiences.

I will second that. I would also nominate comments along the lines of "it's because most nurses are women and that's how women are" as TOS violations. Sexism is just as bad as ageism.

sjrn85 · Dec 23, 2005

I will second that. I would also nominate comments along the lines of "it's because most nurses are women and that's how women are" as TOS violations. Sexism is just as bad as ageism.

And I'll second that, too.

hipab4hands · Dec 23, 2005

Our upper management discourages "team spirit". If a group of nurses get too friendly with each other, management will break the group up and reassign them elsewhere.

I can't tell you the number of times, I have been verbally disciplined for helping out one of my coworkers, when they had a questions or needed help.

SFCardiacRN · Dec 23, 2005

A lot of new grads and and experienced but new employees end up in "toxic" units because that is where the high turnover rates are. Hospitals put you where the need is greatest. Just ask the float nurses! They know which units are pleasant and which are not. I think the problem is at the unit supervisor level. Some have poor management skills, clueless about conflict resolution, and play favorites with staff. To paint an entire hospital or profession as toxic is just unfounded bias. Nursing presents too many opportunities to remain in bad situations. If your unhappy, blame yourself.

There are terrific jobs and co-workers out there. I LOVE BEING A NURSE!

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Dec 23, 2005

I will second that. I would also nominate comments along the lines of "it's because most nurses are women and that's how women are" as TOS violations. Sexism is just as bad as ageism.

Oh i get SOOOO sick and tired of hearing/reading that lame-orificed scapegoating put-off excuse also. :rolleyes:

ortess1971 · Dec 25, 2005

I agree with what you say about the nursing "shortage", although I feel it's more a shortage of attractive jobs than a shortage of actual licensed nurses. However, one problem that contributes to the negative aspects of nursing is the way student nurses are treated by their instructors. In nursing school one has a target on their head from the day they start until the day they finish. They can be dropped at any time for almost any reason. This is so unlike medical school, where once one is accepted into the program, it is almost impossible to be dropped. True it's harder to get in, but once you are in you are in till the end. The support and respect and encouragement are temendous. One of my friends just completed the first year of medical school and he said on the first day the director told them "we will not allow you to fail, you are here till you finish the program." This is in sharp contrast to what our nursing director told us on our first day - "by the end of the program, only half of you will be here". Is that supposed to impress anyone? Does that make it a good program or reflect the level or quality of education that can be expected? So at my school there seems to be a tradition of "let's see if we can find reasons to drop people", then we can "show" everyone how hard our program is, rather than educating them and building up their confidence. Ironically, this program has one of the worst historical NCLEX passing rates in the state. Their justification for this is of course two things, "patient safety", and "critical thinking". It's amazing how the nursing education and profession continuously trumpets these two phrases and uses them as justification for everything they decide to do to themselves and their students and fellow employees. You don't hear doctors and other health care workers braying about this every minute of the day - it's so obvious, it doesn't need to be constantly trumpeted, yet in nursing education these phrases are applied and used to justify every action, however bizaare, misdirected, or unjust. This results in being tested on materials that were never covered in class, being expected to perfect clinical skills when there is no lab time to practice them except at the clinical site itself- how scary is that- and instructors who use their own subjectivity in deciding who will pass and who will fail. What is the solution? We need to set higher standards for incoming nursing students and then educate them and support them until they finish- and see to it that they finish on time, like medical students. There should also be high standards set for nursing instructors. Many of them have no prior teaching experience and no education certification. There is a noticible difference in the teaching ability of nursing instructors and teachers who teach other subjects such as biology anatomy, or ethics. Thus, nursing instructors need to be carefully screened and evaluated before being allowed to teach. Even though there is a nursing "shortage" and a shortage of nursing instructors, hiring someone "off the nursing floor" who happens to have a masters just doesn't necessarily create a good instructor. An additional problem that this creates is that the "fresh off the floor" instructor brings all their biasses and past grudges and opnions with them, and often the students are exposed to these and often negatively affected. That "eat their young mentality" is transfered to a new generation of future nurses and the pathetic cycle continues. I believe that is why many nursing students drop out, or are unjustly graded and end up being dropped from their program. The instructors "set the atmosphere" and the atmosphere today is a very bad one.

Amen to that! I by no means think that as students we should be coddled but the person that said that we are paying them for our education hit it right on the head. I finish in May and I have attained a backbone my last year in nursing school. I am not rude to staff or my instructor but I do not tolerate someone taking out their bad day on me. I am at clinical to learn but I am not there to pick up a staff nurses slack if she is at the computer, on Ebay or reading her email. One nurse rolled her eyes at me because a patient(not the one I was assigned to) needed a med and I told her I would be glad to do it but we are not allowed to go into the pyxis-I had to wait for my instructor. Trust me, that was the last time I ever answered a call light for that nurse. Laziness is not a phenomenon seen only in students. Thankfully most of the nurses at that hospital were great and they themselves knew which of their coworkers were nasty and lazy-the good ones would give us pointers on who to avoid. :lol2:

sjrn85 · Dec 26, 2005

There it is again..."nurses eat their young." Mean people eat mean people, regardless of age.

While students want to be treated with respect, staff nurses would like the same, too. Please don't treat us like the sole purpose of our existence is to download all of our knowledge and experience into your brains; do some research on your own...look things up. If a nurse asks for your help and it's something you're allowed to do, please help, even if you already "have that skill checked off." Save the bored sighs and rolling eyes for your instructors.

And one of the best things you can do as a student is to not perpetuate the hackneyed expression, "nurses eat their young." It's a hurtful expression that does a great disservice to the countless nurses out there who have helped students over the years, often with little thanks or appreciation.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Dec 26, 2005

And one of the best things you can do as a student is to not perpetuate the hackneyed expression, "nurses eat their young." It's a hurtful expression that does a great disservice to the countless nurses out there who have helped students over the years, often with little thanks or appreciation.

Amen!!!!!

Cyndee, MSN, NP · Dec 26, 2005

I read recently that only 12% of all nurses are under the age of 30. Being a new graduate BSN and practicing nursing for 18 months, I found that statistic pretty horrifying. I have been visiting this site for about three months now and various nurses are trying to find out solutions to the nursing shortage and who to blame.
First off I think nurses need to share some of that blame. Like I said am a new nurse that graduated with my BSN and also with a Business degree. So I am keen to pick up on why things do not work. First off our normal nursing class size usually max out at thirty-five students. Our class started out with 27 students because the program did not receive enough applications to fill the class. During my last two years we lost 5 students out of the program not because of low grade or they failed out, most were top of our class, mostly because of lack of respect they received from nursing instructors and nursing staff at the local hospitals where we did our clinical.
LPN's and Rn's alike would ridicule most of the students. They would openly complain about us to the patients and to staff members alike. During report we would hear the RN's say "al my gosh we have students today, today would be a good day to call in sick". Don't get me wrong there was some educators that did a good gob and greeted us with open arms, but a majority of the time the staff was very disrespectful from RN's to Nursing Assistant's. Most of the teaching came from physicians if we had the opportunity to rounds with.
After graduation I passed my boards on the first try and took a job on a Medical Surgical floor. The first night was highly anticipated and was looking forward to my new career. I reported to the charge nurse who did not expect me and did not know who to put me with. Eventually they put me with a LVN who was very intolerable to teaching others and I seemed like a burden to her. Eventually I just left and told the charge nurse I was very disappointed by the way things was run here and left in middle of my shift.
Eventually I did land a job that did really well in teaching me the ins and outs of nursing. I would actually check on my fellow graduates after a year of last seeing them. One of my fellow students informed me that four other nurses got out of nursing they did not feel safe with the patient load given to them and very little mentoring from senior nurses.
I am 26 years of age, kind of old for a new graduate. I worked in other professions such and engineering as a drafter and sales. Never have I worked in a profession that fellow professionals were so rude and uncaring to each other. I have several friends who are physicians that talked me to going back to school and finish my classes to apply to Medical School, they openly joke about how nurses are very disrespectfully to each other and how senior nurses eat their young.
If the nursing profession were such a great career as most of you described, there would not be a shortage. I agree that that the aging baby boomer poses a challenge and is one of the reasons but I think we need to look in the mirror and accept some of the blame.
So in closing if you get a new graduated in the floor, accept them with open arms instead of treating them like a burden.

I don't blame you for leaving the profession. First of all, I'm amazed that the charge nurse actually had a LPN train a RN...what the heck was she thinking? When I went through a BSN program 10 years ago, I received the same type of treatment from the nurses at the clinical sites. The instructors weren't any nicer and they were particularly rude to the men in the program. I eventually went back to school and became an Adult Nurse Practitioner. Graduate school (different school) was far better than I could have ever imagined. I absolutely love being a nurse practitioner and just about everyone has treated me with respect. It is very different from working as a RN. Before you rush off to medical school, you should definitely consider becoming a NP.

Cyndee, MSN, NP · Dec 26, 2005

BSN and MSN are paid more but only when they use their advanced degrees. If an MSN remains in med/surg, they will be compensated like the other med/surg RN's. There is a huge shortage of clinical instructors. Not many MSN's are willing to take a pay cut to teach full time.

I am a Master's prepared nurse practitioner, but I work a couple of weekends a month as a RN at the local hospital. When I work as a RN, I make the same amount of money as any other RN on the unit. I used to work at a hospital that paid BSN's exactly 50 cents more per hour than an ADN's - not much incentive to get a college degree!

Cyndee, MSN, NP · Dec 26, 2005

You must have gone to the same program that I graduated from! I went to another college to get my Master's degree and was treated exceptionally well! I put off going back to school for years because I was afraid that I would have to put up with all the BS I got the first time around.

I agree with what you say about the nursing "shortage", although I feel it's more a shortage of attractive jobs than a shortage of actual licensed nurses. However, one problem that contributes to the negative aspects of nursing is the way student nurses are treated by their instructors. In nursing school one has a target on their head from the day they start until the day they finish. They can be dropped at any time for almost any reason. This is so unlike medical school, where once one is accepted into the program, it is almost impossible to be dropped. True it's harder to get in, but once you are in you are in till the end. The support and respect and encouragement are temendous. One of my friends just completed the first year of medical school and he said on the first day the director told them "we will not allow you to fail, you are here till you finish the program." This is in sharp contrast to what our nursing director told us on our first day - "by the end of the program, only half of you will be here". Is that supposed to impress anyone? Does that make it a good program or reflect the level or quality of education that can be expected? So at my school there seems to be a tradition of "let's see if we can find reasons to drop people", then we can "show" everyone how hard our program is, rather than educating them and building up their confidence. Ironically, this program has one of the worst historical NCLEX passing rates in the state. Their justification for this is of course two things, "patient safety", and "critical thinking". It's amazing how the nursing education and profession continuously trumpets these two phrases and uses them as justification for everything they decide to do to themselves and their students and fellow employees. You don't hear doctors and other health care workers braying about this every minute of the day - it's so obvious, it doesn't need to be constantly trumpeted, yet in nursing education these phrases are applied and used to justify every action, however bizaare, misdirected, or unjust. This results in being tested on materials that were never covered in class, being expected to perfect clinical skills when there is no lab time to practice them except at the clinical site itself- how scary is that- and instructors who use their own subjectivity in deciding who will pass and who will fail. What is the solution? We need to set higher standards for incoming nursing students and then educate them and support them until they finish- and see to it that they finish on time, like medical students. There should also be high standards set for nursing instructors. Many of them have no prior teaching experience and no education certification. There is a noticible difference in the teaching ability of nursing instructors and teachers who teach other subjects such as biology anatomy, or ethics. Thus, nursing instructors need to be carefully screened and evaluated before being allowed to teach. Even though there is a nursing "shortage" and a shortage of nursing instructors, hiring someone "off the nursing floor" who happens to have a masters just doesn't necessarily create a good instructor. An additional problem that this creates is that the "fresh off the floor" instructor brings all their biasses and past grudges and opnions with them, and often the students are exposed to these and often negatively affected. That "eat their young mentality" is transfered to a new generation of future nurses and the pathetic cycle continues. I believe that is why many nursing students drop out, or are unjustly graded and end up being dropped from their program. The instructors "set the atmosphere" and the atmosphere today is a very bad one.