Nurses as day laborers (rant)

[RunningWithScissors]

I was replying to another thread on the paltry pay we receive for working the weird hours we do, and it occured to me that, as a professional who holds so much responsibilty, my pay "bonuses" are measured by mere pennies per hour.

We have SO MUCH legal and professional responsiblities sitting squarely on our shouldres, and our yearly merits are rewarded with compensation to the right of a decimal point. That is SO WRONG!!!

We take years to prepare and are required in many states to maintain current on our learing, but we are at the whim of the facility to send us packing in the middle of the day when census drops, only to be called back when it, predictably, picks up again a few hours later.

I think part of the reason we all feel so frustrated here is that we are charged with so much responsiblity, but have very little authority on how we practice, and are treated poorer than checkout clerks. Heck, do you see the grocery store sending their employees home in the middle of the day "Stay by the phone, we'll call you when more customers come in".

And, employers know our jobs are high risk for back and other injuries, but do not purchase the proper aids that would make lifting and transferring patients easier on us. Like we are held in contempt by the facilities that hire us. And then when nurses DO get injured, they are dropped like hot potatoes.

Ladies, if you are a nurse, you are smart enough to make it through law school, vet school, or anything else you want to do. If I wasn't so old and had so many people riding on my salary, I'd switch professions in a heartbeat.

We are ALL too smart to take this maltreatment, and we have NO POWER to do anything. Strike? Union you say? Hah!! Just look at what Petoskey Michigan did....the nurses there went on strike YEARS ago, and the hospital never caved. They just hired temps. Some nurses came limping back with their tails between their legs, some never got their jobs back.

Do your firefighters take this kind of abuse? Your police department? I think not. These "professions" consist of mostly males. Could this be why?? I think so. I thought when more men entered nursing things would change. They did not.

Whew.......have a good day!

[Soup Turtle]

"Ladies, if you are a nurse, you are smart enough to make it through law school, vet school, or anything else you want to do. If I wasn't so old and had so many people riding on my salary, I'd switch professions in a heartbeat."

I work for a bunch of vets and they all think they're underpaid and put through a lot of BS, too. One of them told me I'd be making more $ than she was after becoming an RN. A few of them really seem bitter about deciding to become vets and spending the money/time on school. It's kind of sad.

[RNOTODAY, BSN, RN]

I agree with the OP. I have become very disenchanted with the whole nursing profession, period. Yes, many professionals feel devalued, overworked, but the professional livelihood, and LICENCES (because not all even have one) are not at risk. If a teacher has a bad day, she is irritated, a student gets upset, whatever... and that usually is the extent of it. If a RN has a bad day, a PERSON could be physically hurt, or even die, and your responsible. WE have to give life saving medication, but if we miss a wrong calculation written by a medical doctor , and we give the ordered dose/med, and something happens? Its our butts in a sling. Emmense responsibility, zero authority, zero autonomy. But, I am not saying anything any of you dont allready know.... If I knew of a field that would grant me at least $20 an hour with good benefits.I would run to it in a second.... but for now, I am looking for the least nursing job I can find. If my daughter wants to be a nurse, I told her she can pay for it herself. .....

[AfloydRN, BSN, RN]

The last time I complained on here about the mass amounts of responsibility we are given I was told of course you assume responsibility for 10 patients and if you don't want to you shouldn't be a nurse. You cannot safely and adequately take care of 10-12 post-op/ post cvl patients every day and not miss something. Someone gets slighted. It's simply not safe. Our manager looks great though.. we are always below budget!

[RunningWithScissors]

My base pay is 65,000/year and that is working 36/hrs/week and taking 4 weeks vacation every year. With overtime I was able to make 87,000 last year and because of the flexible schedule and having 4 days/week off I was able to actually take 7 week long vacations. I dont think police,firemen, lawyers are afforded that much time off because their schedules arent as flexible as ours.

Kymmi, I don't know where you are working, but honey, sounds like you're in shangri-la.

We do accumulate ETO, but can only take it once a year; most of it gets used up standing by on availabilily, not real "vacation time".

I don't know who pays that kind of wages. Either you're miscalcuating, or unionized.....probably you are living on one of the coasts where a 2 bedroom 1 bath house goes for a million dollars. In that case, your wages aren't comparable to the mainstream, just inflated to match your area.

Flexible scheduling here means you flex to the employer's will, not otherwise.

[Jennifer, RN]

I agree with OP.

I work my a** off, overtime and call shifts, and managed to make 50K this past year. But, w/o the OT, my yearly earnings would be at least 10K less. My husband, who is a high school teacher, has better and cheaper insurance through his job than I do WORKING IN A HOSPITAL!!!! We get 2 weeks vacation time a year, but told if and when we can use it. I work 12 hr shifts w/o eating or peeing most of the time, am verbally abused by our "customers" daily, and not respected by doctors or management. And the public thinks that all I do is wipe butts for a living. I now have chronic back pain and an anxiety d/o, which I didn't have prior to becoming a nurse.

As soon as my kids are all in school, my plan is to go back to school for another degree and get the heck out of nursing.

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

There are more and more men entering nursing all the time.

Just relax, honey. Give us time and we'll fix it.

(tongue planted firmly in cheek....)

And men are quitting the profession at TWICE the rate as women. I guess that means that many of them are not up to the task.

[theofficegirl]

As for what I would do if someone handed me the $$ to go back to school and all obligations were met, I'd go to law school in a heartbeat. And I'd make a darn good lawyer at that.

You might make a darn good lawyer. But don't jump ship too fast. Law school is more "who you know" than "what you know". Even getting into a law firm as a paralegal is impossible if you don't know the right people.

Then again, this might vary state-by-state.

Like we nursing-types, I have a friend who's been interested in law since she was a kid. Circumstances put her in college at around age 26, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and scored high on the LSAT (Law school entrance exam). Seven schools turned her down because she doesn't have an endorsement from a highly respected Attorney.

I'm really not trying to discourage anyone, but this is just one example. I have known more people trying to get into law shool on their own merit, only to be passed over for a "C" student who's daddy knows the assistant state attorney.

It's pathetic. At least nursing (to my knowlege) doesn't work this way.

[kate1114]

You might make a darn good lawyer. But don't jump ship too fast. Law school is more "who you know" than "what you know". Even getting into a law firm as a paralegal is impossible if you don't know the right people.

Then again, this might vary state-by-state.

Like we nursing-types, I have a friend who's been interested in law since she was a kid. Circumstances put her in college at around age 26, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude and scored high on the LSAT (Law school entrance exam). Seven schools turned her down because she doesn't have an endorsement from a highly respected Attorney.

My husband is currently finishing up law school (YEAH!!!) and didn't have the same situation. He looked at the averages for GPA and LSAT and applied to many schools. He didn't get into schools that had lower acceptance criteria, including a school from which I have 2 degrees and for which his Grandfather was a donor! He did get into a school in another state (the only acceptance out of about 7-8 applications). We moved and the rest is history.

There were a lot of law schools that he didn't apply to because of their reputations. If he hadn't made it into the tier he wanted, he was poised to go for another round of applications to less selective schools.

So it very well may have been the schools she applied to. I was shocked at some of the schools he *didn't* get into, since his GPA was so much higher than the average. OTOH, I have a friend who knows someone who didn't get into my husband's school, and she jokes that my husband took his spot.

Law school admissions are a bit of a mystery, but it's sad if she tried once and then gave up. References are important, but all of my husband's references were from his professors from his bachelor's degree. He did a lot of research and discovered that many times people apply to up to 10 schools and if they are lucky they get into 1.

It's not always favoritism, but it gets pretty tight when you have a lot of very intellegent, high achieving people who all want the same career.

[ben123]

And men are quitting the profession at TWICE the rate as women. I guess that means that many of them are not up to the task.

May I ask where you got your statistics from.

[JennieO]

I think how you feel about your nursing compensation depends on where you live. My full-time salary with differential is $92,000/year. I am not at the top of the pay scale either. This is not per diem. I get good medical, dental, pension and approx 5 weeks of vacation per year. This salary allows most of us to work part-time which is a feature many professions do not allow.

[burn out]

I know that this may sound stupid but I really believe that it is the root of the problem as to why nurses are not valued by the hospital, patients and even doctors. When you look at a patients bill everything is itemized from lab and xrays to a bar of soap but yet no where do you see a charge for the nursing care they receive. How do we know our true value if there is no dollar amount applied to our service? How can we justify out work? Most hospitals pay their nurses from lab fees and room/board (sounds close to prostitution). Until nursing is costed out on the patients bill no one will know the true value of nurses.

[Hoozdo, ADN]

Kymmi, I don't know where you are working, but honey, sounds like you're in shangri-la.

We do accumulate ETO, but can only take it once a year; most of it gets used up standing by on availabilily, not real "vacation time".

I don't know who pays that kind of wages. Either you're miscalcuating, or unionized.....probably you are living on one of the coasts where a 2 bedroom 1 bath house goes for a million dollars. In that case, your wages aren't comparable to the mainstream, just inflated to match your area.

Flexible scheduling here means you flex to the employer's will, not otherwise.

I don't think she is miscalculating or unionized. Come to Arizona and work where there is a REAL nursing shortage. A 2 bedroom 1 bath house is not a million dollars and that kind of wage is very doable with one year experience! Or check out Nevada - another state that needs nurses badly.