Hospitals Firing Seasoned Nurses: Nurses FIGHT Back!

Facilities are firing seasoned, higher paid nurses and utilizing younger less experienced nurses. This cost-cutting measure is putting patients at risk, working nursing and support staff to the point of exhaustion, and causing staff to leave the profession. Nurses General Nursing Article

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Specializes in Operating Room.

That helps if they are strong unions, but there are plenty of weak, toothless unions out there. The hospital I am at now( temp contract) has one, but they are doing nothing about the current situation.

Specializes in Med-Surg, diabetes.

Just remember, nurses.....you just be prepared to strike if you form a union. I am a nurse of 43 years, and could never and would never abandon my patients to strike! It has happened in the past and patients suffered. Just a thought.

Helen 5919

1 Post

I agree with what was said... It is a sad, sad world that we live in. I have been in this profession since 1968; I was a Candy-Striper in my Senior year of High School...then on to be a Nursing Assistant until 1973. I have been an RN for 26 years now, and I have seen the Nurse to Patient Ratios increase. I have been working in different states as an RN, and have seen how there is Not enough staff scheduled to work. The Acquity points of the patients currently on the floor use to dictate the number of nurses needed to care for those Patients on the next shift...but where has that Mind-set gone?? Family members stay and help with bathing their loved ones, but does the Director of the floor or Administrator see that?? No. Patients use to get clean sheets every day...But do they now?? No. I don't even see patients offered washcloths or towels to get cleaned-up any more. We need to get back to the basics. Patients are Human. Nurses are human, too.

lindarn

1,982 Posts

How exactly is the way to fight back, "The way to fight back is for more nurses to become Master's prepared"?

How is having a Master's Degree going to allow nurses to fight back? The ONLY thing that will allow nurses to fight back, is to organize with the NNOC, and take control of our profession.

Packing on more student loans, and adding to debt, will make nurses less inclined to fight back, because they will not want to risk losing their jobs, and falling into debt that they cannot repay.

Nurses need to organize under one national nurses union, support that union, and stick to their guns, when it comes to staffing ratios, pay, benefits, working conditions, etc.

Only then will nurses have a profession that they are proud to belong to, and more importantly, fight for.

I do believe that a BSN should be the entry into practice degree, and a two year Associates degree should be the entry into practice for LPN/LVNs.

Physical Therapy ASSISTANTS, have a two year Associates Degree as entry into practice. What does that say about nursing, when a two year associates degree, get you a Registered Nurse license, and a one year program, for LPN/LVNs, get one a Licensed Practical nurse license?

We are not looked at as professionals, we do not stick up for ourselves, or each other, and allow this treatment to continue.

It will continue, as will the de-skilling of our professional practice, and have it handed to to HS dropouts.

JMHO and my NY $0.02

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Somewhere in the PACNW

avengingspirit1

242 Posts

VANurse2010 said:
This post is one of the stupidest things I've ever read. Congrats.

Some of us supported the ACA because we were tired of the "don't get sick and if you do, die quickly" crowd that you back (I.e. the Republican Party).

Your own comment was probably the stupidest thing you ever wrote and read. And judging from the way it looks, I'm sure you've had many stupid comments as runner-ups.

"The ANA endorsed President Barack Obama for re-election in this year's presidential campaign, citing his efforts to reshape the healthcare system. Increasing access to care and transforming the American healthcare system from one that focuses on illness care to a system that emphasizes prevention, wellness and care coordination have been ANA's priorities for more than two decades." (Nurse.com, June 8, 2012 p. 15) The ANA supported a law that was pushed through late Christmas Eve 2009 behaind closed doors because they wanted no one to know about it. With deductibles for ACA plans at $5000 -$6600, many can no longer afford to go to the doctor for routine checkups. The Obama administration along with the Dept. of HHS purposely inserted the 10 essential benefits knowing it would outlaw 80% of all existing plans in an effort to force people onto the exchanges with a very limited number of plans with higher deductibles, premiums and out of pocket costs. And this was after this idiot administration promised over and over again that those with plans they currently had and liked would be left alone. Lastly, the administration has claimed the ACA a success because they've reached their sign-up goals. Insurers are saying they must have double-digit premium increases because they didn't get enough signups.

The ANA and this administration are two of the most venal, prevaricating groups of people I've ever had the displeasure of knowing. The only reason the ANA was in support of the ACA because they thought it would be more money in their pockets.

NurseDiane

298 Posts

I haven't read all of the comments because of the ones that I did read, they said the same thing: Nurses are fed up with what's going on now.

Advising nurses to form a national union, stick together & "fight" will not do anything. Do you know why? Because HEALTH CARE IS DICTATED BY MEDICARE/MEDICAID & THE INSURANCE COMPANIES!!!! Don't solely blame the hospital administrators (although there is plenty of blame that can be placed on them), blame our government in Washington. Health care has become BIG BUSINESS---big pharma, big insurance companies, hospitals merging to form large "management" corporations. Just follow the money & you'll find the root cause of the problem.

I have been a nurse for almost 30 years. I was a candy striper, went to a vocational school when I was a junior & senior in high school for LPN, worked as a nurse's aide during the summers of junior & senior high school, as an LPN while in school for my RN, an RN in NYC hospitals & smaller community hospitals, and then a CRNA. I have seen healthcare go from wonderful & caring, from really helping patients heal & watch them go home better than they entered the hospital to being under pressure to admit & discharge patients as fast as possible so hospitals can maximize their profits & watching people be discharged in worse condition than when they were admitted to the hospital. If a patient didn't have an infection when they were admitted, they're almost guaranteed to get one before they're discharged. It was satisfying back then. I had a feeling of accomplishment every day. Now, the most important things are to make sure the charting is spot on in case the hospital gets sued & to move as many patients through as fast as humanly possible. I have heard stories that now in nursing orientations, nurses are given a "script" of things to say to the patients in order to get good surveys from the patients. What? The hospitals want the nurses to "upsell" the hospital's services so that the patients don't go anywhere else for their lab work, radiology services, chemo, & other continued treatments. If nurses wants to be salesmen, they wouldn't have gone into nursing---they would have gone into sales. But that's what happens when hospitals stopped being run by people with medical experience & got passed into the hands of MBA's.

In the OR, the charge nurse would walk around making sure that there was only a 2 minute turnover time---I was still walking my patient to the PACU as another patient was being brought into the room & moved onto the OR table!! I hadn't even cleaned up my work area yet!! And God forbid it took more time to extubate a patient---the charge nurse would push the door open & demand to know why I didn't extubate the patient & bring them to PACU. A nurse with no anesthesia or critical care experience was telling me to put the patient on a t-piece & bring them to the PACU!!! Are you fu**ing kidding me? And she'd do this to anesthesiologists too----one anesthesiologist turned around & told her to shut up & get the hell out of his OR. This is what it has come down to: Move as many patients through as possible to maximize profits. If a surgery takes longer than expected, the charge nurse comes into the OR & questions the circulating nurse about why the surgeon is still operating. There are no accommodations for anything, and as nurses we know better than anyone that things are often not what they seem. Sometimes if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck & talks like a duck, it's not a duck---it's a zebra. Surgeons go in & find things they didn't expect to find during a "routine" procedure. But the only thing that matters is that the OR is going to be backed up, they won't be able to accommodate the add-on cases that they have a long list of & they'll lose $$$$$ if those cases are not done by 11:59 pm.

The behavior rolls downhill---from the administrators to the upper level nursing management to mid-level management to charge nurses, and then onto the staff. However, the top level administrators are under someone too: Medicare/Medicaid & the insurance companies, who have the politicians in Washington in their back pocket. The truth in politics is if you donate a lot of money, you get whatever you want. How do you think the ACA got passed? The ACA had NOTHING to do with giving more people access to care. It had to do with insurance companies slapping huge deductibles, co-pays & co-insurance onto insurance plans, on top of their ever-increasing premiums costs. Constitutionally, the ACA is illegal: Mandating that citizens purchase insurance from private, for-profit companies is illegal. If the government wanted to get rid of the private insurance companies & have health care be a single payer system, paid for with tax money, that would be a different story. Now, unless people spend $1,000+ per month on a platinum plan, their deductibles are huge, co-pays high & many also carry a co-insurance of somewhere between 10% and 25%, sometimes higher. How is that "AFFORDABLE"? Unless someone has a debilitating chronic disease, utilizing medical services to the max, the current health insurance plans are not shelling out any money----the policy holder is responsible for the costs anyway. With a $6,500 deductible, a "normal" person who sees a doctor for an annual physical, routine lab work, an EKG, & maybe when they have a sore throat or cough or achy joint will have NONE of the costs covered by their insurance. The health care plans are essentially catastrophic plans, there in case you have a bad car accident or get really sick where you need a hospital admission. And you'll still have to shell out a pretty penny from your own pocket anyway. All the while the CEO's of the insurance companies take home staggering salaries & bonuses every year. That's where this whole problem stems from. And everyone is health care is feeling it: Doctors, nurses, physical therapists, etc. Most doctors I know refuse to argue with insurance companies over authorization denials for routine things because they spend a lot of time after office hours, uncompensated, to write letters of medical necessity & make phone calls to argue with someone who has a high school education on the other end of the line about increasing their blood pressure medication. That is not a physician's job. Several physicians have told me that they aren't doing it anymore, and that if something happens to a patient & they get sued, then the doctor will be sure to make it known that they prescribed the correct treatment & the patient didn't get the treatment because the insurance company wouldn't authorize payment for it. Maybe if lawsuits were brought against insurance companies for refusing to authorize payment as a medical malpractice claim, things would change. Maybe if the CEO's were personally named in the lawsuits as defendants for being the ringleaders in the authorization denial game, things would be different. But until that starts to happen, nothing will change. Nurses & doctors won't and don't change anything, no matter how bad it gets. Lawsuits change things. No CEO wants his name or his company on the 5 o'clock news & on the front page of the New York Times & Washington Post with a story about a multi million dollar lawsuit against them for not authorizing payment & causing someone's death or permanent injury despite walking away with $28 million dollars in bonuses the prior year.

So, there's my 2 cents. It won't make a bit of difference in the financial game that health care has become. My advice to anyone telling me that they want to go to school to be a nurse is DON'T DO IT. Don't incur tens of thousands of dollars in school loans to be a nurse because you won't be able to get a job when you graduate. Do something else: Learn how to fix a car, because everyone needs a good mechanic. Learn how to be an electrician: union electricians make a crap-ton of money & have great benefits & pensions. Learn how to cut & color hair: People spend an inordinate amount of money on their their hair, more than what they spend on their health. Learn how to run a business: You'll have a ton of freedom to do what you want to do. If I knew 30 years ago that health care would end up like this, I would have decided on something else. People that say that health care is a "good" profession to get into are misguided & totally wrong.

avengingspirit1

242 Posts

NurseDiane:

Your experience in the nursing field and overall wisdom come through. Everything you posted was the God's-honest truth. I just finished paying off my student loan for my three year diploma nursing school program and absolutely refuse to shell out another $20,000 at age 50 for a worthless online BSN which will consist of writing useless papers in APA format that have nothing to do with patient care or anything else that can be applicable in the real world.

Over $600 billion that we know of was funneled from medicare to help finance the ACA. That is just the number that has been published, It is speculated to be much higher. As reimbursements for services to medicare patients have declined, hospitals are trying to do more with less. And that includes having fewer nurses take on heavier patient loads. With the new ACA plans, provider lists have been drastically narrowed. Now the administration is pushing urgent care centers as the palce to go for primary healthcare needs.

Also, the only people who have benefited from the ACA are the insurance companies. The administration created the "risk corridor" and "reinsurance' programs which gave billions of dollars in government subsidies to insurers. Insurers were only too happy to drop existing plans as ordered by the government because those two programs ensured claims paid by insurers would be don so with taxpayer money. When there was a big outcry about policy cancellations in the Fall of 2013, the Obama administration then said insurers should extend existing plans for another year. Insurers then cried fowl as they had already set their 2014 premium rates. The administration countered by changing the rules of the "risk corridor" and "reinsurance" programs to funnel more money to insurers which effectively bought their silence. Now insurers basically have a risk-free business. That is until 2017 when these two programs are due to end and the ACA exchanges will be expected to stand on their own. They can barely do it now with all the infusion of taxpayer monies.

You're right that nursing and healthcare are not the way to go now. I am looking to invest in real estate or a business rather than a BSN. And just so all nurses know, they are already planing to start pushing the MSN to keep constant flows of revenue into the universities as well as all the other organizations that will benefit from it. many colleges are experiencing financial troubles and since the baby boomers have aged, the only way these these people can ensure their jobs will be safe is to create a situation to keep people in their 30s, 40s and 50s constantly having to run back to school.

They are hoping nurses will buy into the MSN and beyond scam just as easily as they bought into the BSN. Whether these nurses will have jobs is another story.

NurseDiane

298 Posts

In my humble opinion, the ONLY higher education for a nurse to get is a masters for nurse anesthesia. It is the ONLY job that pays well in nursing. Who wants to be an NP in a primary care practice, or in a nursing home? If your purpose in life is to be a DON, good luck: Compared to all the hospitals in the country, and the number of nurses working those hospitals, the # of DONs pales in comparison. You'll be lucky if you end up as a house supervisor or some assistant DON which is just a title and nothing more than a supervisor with a more impressive name.

I read something a couple of months ago about the ACA--In Kentucky (I think it was Kentucky, but wouldn't bet my life on it), there were estimates about how many additional surgical procedures would be done in 2014 when the ACA allowed those people who were not Medicaid eligible to get on the Medicaid dole. The estimates were in the 300,000 range. The real number turned out to be nearly 700,000---twice the amount that they estimated. Who do you think pays for that? And was it because those people really needed the procedures, or was it because doctors are losing money hand over fist & doing procedures that are not necessary to increase their income? It is sad that physicians have to think & scheme of ways to increase their income because Medicare & health insurance pays next to nothing for healthcare.

I'm right around your age---I'll be 48 in October. I can't believe the smoke-and-mirrors spell that people are under about health care. Many, many people sprinted to nursing school when it was put out there that there was a nursing shortage. They finished school, tens of thousands of dollars in debt & couldn't get jobs. They defaulted on their loans, which results in the Department of Education, a federal agency, to collect more money on defaulted loans. Nurses think that getting a master's degree will help them get farther, but it won't. All it will do is cause them to incur tens, if not hundreds, of dollars in school loan debt, while they get a per diem or part time position doing primary care or OB or pediatrics. NP's do not do surgery, they don't see acutely ill patients, they don't work as physician assistants nor do they do what PA's are allowed to do. Why would anyone want to do that? To say they have a master's degree? I have a master's degree, BFD. All that means is that I had the drive & determination to get away from bedside nursing & the abuse that I was taking doing it. It means that I was able to survive 2.5 years of being used like a slave in a NYC hospital's OR because there was no money to hire real CRNA's. All it says is that I could withstand living in a state of constant sleep deprivation & stress. Anybody can do it if they are willing to withstand those conditions. And I did it when I was MUCH younger----25 years old. I don't think I could do that today. I like my bed & my sleep & going to the gym & the beach & vacation a little too much at this point in my life.

I've often thought of going back to beauty school, believe it or not. I meant what I said about people spending more on their hair than on their health. People will balk at paying $350 for a doctor's office visit, but gladly hand over the credit card in a salon for the same amount after they have their hair colored & blown out.

Is health care a "right"? As long as healthcare is governed by a for-profit business, it will NEVER be a "right". As it is right now, the only people that are getting quality health care are the people who can pay for it with platinum plans or out of their own pockets. Physicians have abandoned their previous practices where they billed Medicare & insurance companies and formed "concierge practices" where people pay a certain amount of money annually that guarantees them quick appointments & more time spent with the doctor. But, only people that can afford that do it. So, to get a doctor to sit down & talk to you about your conditions or how to stay healthy, you have to pay for it. Many people balk at how much physicians made/make, and blame that for the health care crisis, and they are very misinformed. They forget that physicians spent 8, 10, 12, sometimes even 15 years in medical school, residency & fellowships to practice their specialties----how many other careers can say the same? Lawyers around the area I live (New York/Long Island) charge upwards of $500 an hour (if not more) to handle a legal matter, and they went to 4 years of college for a bachelor's degree and 3 years of law school. That's it. After going to school for 8 to 15 years, working for essentially nothing as a resident/fellow, incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in school loan debt & going through the abuse that a resident goes through, as far as I'm concerned, they deserve what they earned. How many people would give up their lives to do the same? Ask the people who ***** & complain about paying to see a doctor if they would do it----I'm sure they'd all say no.

Health care will not move from a for-profit business in the near future. Will it do so in my lifetime? Maybe. Perhaps when people can no longer afford to pay the premiums, or are avoiding going to doctor's offices or hospitals when they're ill because they can't afford it. And maybe taht was the plan all along by our devious government. For-profit healthcare has proven itself to be a great source of shareholder investment returns & high salaries for the fortunate few. As long as our administration in Washington is allowed to receive huge campaign contributions from large healthcare corporations, every decision they make about healthcare will favor those big corporations, not the people using their services. I laugh when I read about a new type 2 diabetes drug getting FDA approval after one year of trials--and then reading a couple of years later that it causes cancer or some other serious health issue. I laugh when I read commentaries from "trained and board certified physicians" from the CDC or NHI poo-poo alternative therapies as treatments and/or nutrition as a main cause of disease today. And "research"? Research can only be done if places/researchers get government or private grants from healthcare companies. Unbiased research? No way.

It is in the best interests of big pharma & large healthcare corporations to keep the people sick. I strongly believe there is a cure for cancer, but we will NEVER see it because big pharma makes a killing on chemo & electronics companies makes a killing from radiation treatments. If our government REALLY wanted to promote health & wellness, prevent people from becoming diabetics & morbidly obese, they would start restricting the kinds of foods that are manufactured---stop letting Frito Lay make potato chips, Fritos & cheese doodles. Stop Coca-Cola & Pepsi from making that sugar-laden soda. If the government REALLY wanted to prevent cancer, it would start regulating the GMO seeds that are used on 99% of farms in this country so that Round Up---a known carcinogen---can be used. Read up about Monsanto & it's hold in Washington---you'll fall off your chair. I am not a "conspiracy theorist", but what's going on in America today is being promoted & allowed by our own government to maintain the politicians' political offices. And healthcare (or lack thereof) is part of that plan. It's a win-win for politicians and big healthcare companies.

If you want to read something about how our government strives to keep people sick, Google c-diff, fecal transplants and FDA limitations on fecal transplants. Fecal transplants are extremely simple procedures that CURE---that's right, C-U-R-E---c-diff. GI docs were doing them & curing their patients, causing them to not have to take a crap-ton of antibiotics that did absolutely nothing except cause drug resistance. The FDA got wind of it & IMMEDIATELY put a stop to it, making feces an "investigational drug" that required approval from the FDA before using it in a fecal transplant. In order for a doctor to do a fecal transplant, they had to apply to the FDA for an investigational procedure, which involved a pile of paperwork, and then wait for the answer from the FDA, which usually took about one year. Why would the FDA restrict something that is a CURE to a disease that many patients get that often causes debilitating problems? Because big pharma stood to lose a ton of money from the cured patients who no longer needed all those antibiotics. So, those doctors instructed patients on how they could cure their own c-diff: get a little bit of stool from a family member or somebody they trusted that had no communicable diseases, go to the drugstore & buy a Fleets enema for $1.00, mix up the Fleets liquid & the stool, and give themselves an enema with it. And guess what? Those patients were CURED of their c-diff for ONE DOLLAR. When I see the director of the CDC or FDA on TV, blabbing about something being based on "evidence based medicine" or "research studies", I literally laugh out loud. Do you know the "ultimate" reason that the FDA put the kabosh on them? So that a big healthcare company could establish a "feces bank" where physicians could access some fecal material to do the transplants. It has to do with nothing else. Some big company got wind of this & gave a bunch of money to a politician who in turn told the FDA to restrict fecal transplants until a sh** bank could be started by a big healthcare company to make a whole lotta money. It's even mentioned in the FDA literature---not that a big healthcare company would establish a "feces bank", but that there would be a "feces bank" that contained feces from "healthy individuals" and that is where physicians doing fecal transplants would be required to get their feces from. Never mind your husband/wife, child, friend, neighbor bringing in a cup with some crap in it for free---now the patient has to pay for some sh** from a bank that the bank got for free. Check it out: Guidance for IndustryEnforcement Policy Regarding Investigational New DrugRequirements for Use of Fecal Microbiota for Transplantation toTreat Clostridium difficile Infection Not Responsive to StandardTherapies Just Google it, it's a short read. The wording is also interesting: Fecal transplants for patients "not responding to standard therapies". So, exactly how long does a person have to be on "standard therapies", and lose 30% of their body weight, have bowel resections from repeated courses of antibiotics that don't work, end up on disability & lose everything they have before they can have a fecal transplant that would rid them of the nightmare of c-diff? Exactly how many antibiotics do they have to take before the FDA will approve the fecal transplant? Exactly how sick do they have to be to get approval from the FDA? And, BTW, what is considered "standard therapies" by the FDA? Very vague, indeed. I'm sure it's until a certain amount of money has been spent by the patient to benefit big pharma. It's all about money.

If you want to find a solution to the problem, just follow the money. Don't blame hospital administrators for this---place the blame on the root cause of it all: our government. They have allowed our healthcare system to be where it is today, they allowed for-profit insurance companies to monopolize the market & screw people every which way but loose with their inadequate plans, they have allowed decreased reimbursements and sky high premiums/deductibles/co-pays/co-insurance, they have allowed the fleecing of our healthcare system and dumped it on the backs of the American people. If the ACA was so wonderful, then how come our elected representatives in Washington didn't jump on the same wagon? Is it because they think that they're entitled to better healthcare than everyone else? The only answer is yes.

I'm curious to see what happens in 2017 when the system is expected to stand on its own. People are not going to be able to afford the premiums because they will skyrocket as if they're taking off from Cape Canaveral. When people put down their cell phones that they're glued to 24/7, open their eyes & stop watching what the Kardashians are doing, quit their mindset that the government is there to "help us", and start acquiring some knowledge about what is really going on, then maybe things will change. I just wonder how fed up everybody has to get before that happens.

NurseDiane

298 Posts

BTW, avengingspirit, how many other college majors get their bachelor's degree online? Maybe college has changed since I've been there---I'm sure it has---but I had to actually go sit in class 2 or 3 times a week & listen to a professor actually TEACH us. How can a college actually charge people for something that they will be doing themselves, online? If I am paying for something, I want something in return. I want to go see a person talk, I want to learn by someone teaching me the concepts, and then I'll go home & support those concepts on my own. Since when do students have to play the role of teacher & pupil? I can teach myself with the internet----the amount of information & knowledge one can obtain from the internet is simply mind boggling. Why do I have to pay $20,000+ for an "online degree"? If I spend as many hours doing internet-based research---because that's what you'd be doing anyway---can I get the same degree? If I can pass the tests given in the online programs by just doing internet research, can I get the degree for free? The whole concept is a joke. I do believe that a bachelor's degree should be the minimum entry level for an R.N., just like it is for other professions: accountant, engineer, teacher. I have never heard of an online medical school, have you? If nurses can get online "degrees", then why can't doctors get their medical degrees online too? I actually looked at a DNP program: $575 a credit, many "online courses" and little classroom time. Seriously? How much are the folks that wrote the curriculum making, exactly? Is it worth $80,000? Nope. Nursing theory, research, dissertations. And what does it get you? I'm not sure. Probably the same mid-level management position somebody with a B.S. has. Or maybe a job as an editor for a free nursing magazine. Or maybe just a few letters that so many nurses seem to like putting after their names. Honestly, I don't care if a nurse is an associate's prepared nurse, has a bachelor's degree, a master's, or a doctorate. If I am admitted to the hospital with an acute MI, or some acute surgical emergency, I want a nurse who can read an EKG that has some common sense to call a doctor if there are atypical rhythms or can recognize an emergency when there is one. I want a nurse who knows that my pain meds are ordered Q4H and is there to give it to me when I need it. I want a nurse who knows how to insert an IV without poking me 7 times. I want a nurse who knows what the normal dosing range of medications is, and who knows that an order for 25 mg of dilaudid isn't correct. No amount of online degree, master's degree or DNP can do that---only clinical experience can do that. Sprinkle that with some simple common sense, and you have a good nurse.

avengingspirit1

242 Posts

Hi NurseDiane:

Online programs are sprouting up all over the place (just like crabgrass and weeds) because the profit margins are very high. With no classrooms to maintain; there's no electricity, heating, plumbing or AC to be concerned with. If books are required, students are told to order them online. And only God knows if the material is coming from an actual qualified professor. I'm sure profit margins for these online programs are at least 250-400%. It would be very interesting to research who have invested in these online rackets and who are the ones making money from them.

I'm sure my story is not unique. Before nursing school, I had earned a Bachelor's Degree in business. I did some graduate work in education and thought I wanted to teach. I have also been a certified fitness trainer since 1992. I thought what better way to combine my love of health & wellness and teaching than to enter healthcare. I started out in physical therapist assistant school; but with the urging of a friend of mine who was in medical school who told me that I could do so much as nurse than as a PTA, I decided to apply to nursing school. Since I already had a Bachelor's Degree and was told by several healthcare practitioners that it would be more feasible to attend an associate's or diploma nursing program, I applied to and was accepted in a 3 yr straight-through-the -summer diploma program. All the math, science and language and social science prerequisite courses I had with my business degree and the previous physical therapist program transferred in.

I was told that if I wanted a BSN; with all the coursework I had completed already, it should only be a few upper level nursing courses. When I looked into it, I found that schools wanted anywhere from 10-15 courses at costs of $11,000 - $25,000. When I looked at curriculums, I saw courses such as Theories of Nursing, Sociology of Nursing, Leadership and Ethics. All of this was incorporated into my diploma program and nothing new that had nay bearing on patient care, I didn't see the purpose of taking on another student loan debt at age 50 to write nonsense papers in APA format at a cost of up to $25,000. Now, if RN-BSN programs consisted of some upper level courses on topics such as; how to recognize early signs of sepsis, new wound care techniques, how to prevent the progression of heart disease and diabetes, how to treat and possibly prevent mental deterioration in the elderly or anything else that can actually be of benefit to people, that would be a different story.

But I learned something very quickly; institutions do not make money by doing what's best for patients and nurses. And to have comprehensive programs for licensed nurses with degrees in other areas consisting of just a few courses does not = staggering profits for institutions. And that is all they are concerned with. And with reduction in medicare spending, "As many as 766,000 healthcare and related jobs could be lost by 2021" (Nursing Spectrum Oct. 8 2012). That number could be more by now. A major teaching hospital in Philadelphia just laid off a bunch of NPs with the last two years.

I believe nurses are better off looking for creative ways to use their nursing education rather than constantly running back to add to the coffers of universities and all other institutions that feed off them.

NurseDiane

298 Posts

avengingspirit---I was going to mention something about the bullsh** coursework in my last post, but figured it was already too long.

I worked with a nurse who had a bachelor's in engineering that no one considered a "B.S.N." & didn't think she was a 4-year nurse, so she couldn't get a job in a hospital. I couldn't believe it. it is a hell of a lot harder to get a bachelors in engineering than to do the online B.S.N. degree nonsense. Plus, she could fix the equipment when it broke!!! I can assure you after nearly 30 years of nursing, there is no nursing theory, ethics, sociology or any other non-clinical course that will help your clinical skills. Nursing theory isn't going to help you call a code when somebody isn't breathing, or pass BLS/ACLS, start an IV, learn how to read & evaluate invasive lines, etc. It's all a crock of crap so that you'll part with your hard earned money---or, better yet, take out some federally backed student loans that the government hopes you'll default on. Even when I went to college many moons ago, the professors stressed "When you go to get your masters degree"...............it was stressed back then too. Some people don't want to get a masters degree----they'd rather spend time with their families & take some vacations. A masters degree in nursing will not get you any more $$$, and that I am sure of. Unless it is an anesthesia degree, where the salaries are triple to quadruple what an RN makes in a hospital. It depends on what part of the country you're in. But, with increased $$$ comes a drastic amount of increased pressure. Plus, there's a constant battle between CRNA's and anesthesiologists all the time, which compounds the stress.

If I want another degree, I want to sit my ass in a classroom & be taught by a professor that is being paid by the school. I am not going to pay tens of thousands of dollars to teach myself with online courses. I can do that for free. And you're right----there are tons of "schools" popping up for online BSN degrees, because they know that most hospitals want 4 year nurses & a whole lot of people went back to school to get 2 year degrees when they heard that there was a nursing shortage (which there never was, unless you go back to the days when I graduated college---I got hired at a major tertiary medical center in Manhattan over the phone when I was a senior in college. They told me when to come to employee health for a physical and when the first day of orientation was. Today, you have to practically give a DNA sample to just get an interview. It is ridiculous.) and need a BSN to get a job. If that's the case, get rid of associate degree programs & only have 4 year programs.

I've done a fair amount of legal consulting, and I was talking to a court reporter one day. he went back to school for nursing after 20 years of court reporting, lured by the "nursing shortage" rumor. He was in his last semester of a 2 year program, and he asked the professor if the class should start applying for jobs before they took the boards. He said the professor laughed & said "You're not going to get jobs. Not with a 2 year degree. You're going to have to get your bachelors degree before anyone will hire you." He said he almost fell out of his chair. If that's the case, why didn't the professors tell them that on the first day of class, and give them an opportunity to walk out of that class & change their major---and he said that to the professor too. He asked her why she waited until they were in their 4th semester to tell them this----when she knows damned well that nobody is going to abandon the program because by then they're too far into it.

With everything that is going on in health care today, I have become very cynical (obviously), and I feel that you have to take everything that is said with a grain of salt. I have come to the conclusion that there are more lies than truth, they'll suck you dry & if you drop dead, they will step over your body & not call your family, they'll smile to your face & stab you in the back. I went into nursing 30 years ago for the right reasons, and probably why most people go into it. Today, nurses cannot practice with those reasons in mind----they have to work with the mindset of not getting in trouble for making a mistake or they'll get reported to the nursing board, getting all their work done by the end of the shift, doing the charting perfectly or they'll get written up. Forget about patient care, helping people or healing other human beings. Nurses cannot show their true colors as caregivers, nurturers, counselors, teachers----their true colors are exhibited in how fast they can get an admit checked in, how fast they can discharge a patient, how many patients they can take, if they can get all the meds given within the set amount of time. Today, nurses are like robots---wind them up & let them go. The things is, you don't know this when you're a student. You get a couple of patients to take care of & that's it. Then when you graduate, if you're lucky enough to get a job, you're thrown 10 or 12, sometimes more, patients to take care of. When people are in school, they have these grandiose ideas of the "perfect job". Let me tell you something----nursing jobs these days are very far from perfect, and as far as I am concerned, it is a means to an end. It's a way to pay the bills. Gone are the days where I would do overtime, come in on my day off to cover a sick call, go above & beyond the basic tasks. When I first started as a nurse 30 years ago, and employers actually gave a crap about the nurses, I did it all the time. But now, you are viewed as expendable, not valued, threatened with your job if you make a mistake, treated like a pack mule. On a normal day, when the supervisors come around with scowls on their faces to check up on you, they couldn't care less if you're there or not. BUT, when they come around because they have to cover a sick call, the smiles are big, they come up to you all happy & sweet, "Can you stay another shift because so-and-so called in sick? Can you stay for part of the shift & I'll try to get someone to relieve you?" They get their way & it's back to the same old sh**.

In one place where I worked, during Nurses' Week in May, they gave the nurses a pencil with the hospital's name on it. Honest to God, true story. A fu**ing PENCIL? How about an extra vacation day? How about gift certificates for a massage? What in the hell are the nurses going to do with a PENCIL???? The hospital administrators are walking around with Mont Blanc pens in their pockets, and the nurses got pencils. One pencil each.

I guess I am just so disheartened with what has happened to healthcare & the way nursing is circling the bowl. It's a shame that hospital administration doesn't hold nurses in the same regard that the public does. People I speak to have great respect for nurses, and they know that they are overworked, underpaid & not appreciated. But unfortunately, they don't know the rest of it---the threats of being reported to the board of nursing, job insecurity, extremely difficult working conditions. Back when I worked on the floors as a new nurse, if a nurse made a med mistake, they got spoken to about it. If there was a 2nd mistake, they got a written warning in their personnel file. I'm not sure what happened after the 3rd. Now, if you gave a patient extra-strength Tylenol instead of regular strength, you'll be facing the nursing board & hanging on to your license with your fingernails. That is no environment to work in.

I agree with you about trying to find creative ways to use your nursing education. I'm not sure there are too many "creative" things you can do with it. When it comes down to brass tacks, it is a very limited, specialized degree. If you want to teach, you need a masters in education. If you want more autonomy, you need a masters in nursing. If you want to be the DON/administrator in a long term care facility, you need a masters in hospital administration or some kind of community health or something. Many of those "creative" jobs are already locked in by other people. They beat you to the punch. And, the truth is, in order to do any of those "creative" jobs, you need clinical experience to be able to know what you're talking about. A nurse without any work experience is not very qualified for anything, quite honestly. So, you have to suck it up & pay your dues.

Everybody in healthcare is feeling the pinch, not just nurses. Name a job in healthcare, and they'll tell you all about it. I used to think physical therapists had a good deal, but now with insurance limiting the number of visits a person can have based on the diagnosis, it's not so good anymore. Healthcare in general is not the field to go into anymore. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have been a vet. I love animals, and I would have gotten all the science, biology, chemistry, microbiology, pathophysiology & pharmacology that I enjoyed in nursing school, and be able to open my own office with total autonomy. Or, like I said, learned how to do hair & open my own salon. What people don't understand is that a good job is not all about a college degree. I have a neighbor who is a union electrician, another neighbor who owns his own plumbing business, another neighbor that owns a marine/boat maintenance company, 2 who are cops, one owns an irrigation business----guess what? None of them have college educations & they pull in a nice salary. Nice enough to have in ground pools, boats, BMW's. And they weren't neck deep in student loans 5 years out of high school, either.

avengingspirit1

242 Posts

NurseDiane:

There are at least three things I will make the general public aware of before I am finished:

1. BSNs, Diploma RNs and Associate Degree RNs are are equally prepared as registered nurses to provide patient care. The authors of the 2003 JAMA Landmark study More BSNs equal better pt outcomes” were hired for one reason: to bring more revenue into the institutions. There was no objective search for the truth and they were back and funded by the very people and organizations that would benefit when they published their already pre-determined results.

2. I want to make sure the public is aware that all RN's take the same licensing exam and that all programs basically contain the same content; because without it they would not be accredited. With all our prerequisites transferred in, we went to school for three years straight the summers (OK, with 2 weeks off at the end of August). We did the same amount of work as those in BSN programs (including all the research and presentations as well as leadership projects). Our school, even though it was under the umbrella of a major university system, it could only be accredited as a diploma program because it was inside 4 walls called Joe's University. The schools, hospitals and nursing organizations try to mislead the general public into thinking BSNs more of a nurse or a different type of a nurse. It's garbage, as all nurses licensed to be able to perform the same duties and take on the same responsibilities.

I also want them to know just what is driving the BSN and Magnet Status pushes (of course we all know it's money). Magnet Status is money making scheme conjured up by the ANA where hospitals pay the ANA thousands of dollars for what is nothing more than a fake seal of approval. When the evaluators come, hospitals make sure only to have nurses working that fit a certain profile. Patient to nurse ratios are lowered and once evaluators leave they go back to doing things the way they did before. Hospitals go through all this because once their check clears and they are granted Magnet Status, they now qualify for large government stipends.

If one were go to the ANA's web site and plod through their page upon page of corporate speak and you will discover that the minimum standards a hospital must meet to obtain Magnet Status are what they would meet to pass a JACHO inspection. The ANA then extrapolates that out to create an assumption/illusion that if the hospital meets those standards, it's because of excellent nursing, there for.... it must me a great place to work/receive care. (Apr 30, '06 by About RN34TX Quote from workingforskies).

3. Due to the healthcare climate today which is purely profit motivated, hospitals are understaffed, patient to nurse ratios are increased and to better their line, hospitals find ways to force out the older most experienced nurses and replace them with younger inexperienced nurses who do not have experience and are not porvided the mentoring they need to learn to be good nurses and pay them at the bottom of the pay scale.

I tell everyone I know to do whatever they can to try to keep themselves healthy; because you desperately want to avoid having to go to a hospital.