MEN, dont come into nursing

[DUDERNGUY]

I ve worked in hospitals and nursing homes. It sucks. Dont let people here convince you on how great it is. If you are going back to school dont hang onto the mentality of "nursing is a great career there where always be jobs" that was 10 years ago when that was true. do research, there are no nursing jobs. People from overseas come here by the boat and take jobs. The wage is on the down trend, there are more then enough nurses to replace those ready to retire. Please if you are just getting into college pick a less stressful, good paying career choice. PPLEASE research on forums and here from nurses who are not happy with their career. coorprate has destroyed nursing. Dont listen to the few on here who say nursing is so wonderful, i promise you when they run out of paxil and adivan, which is fueling there happiness, they will no longer be posting on these boards on the issues of how great their jobs are.

[Accolay]

I don't know if women are temperamentally suited to work as nurses. It's an OK profession for women but it's not a very feminine profession which probably explains why so many women in nursing are gay. For men having a gay woman on the floor is like having a male friend.

Flipped your statement around a bit Mad Libs style. Does it seem ridiculous now?

[AllenTheNurse]

Whoa. Salt. But I like being a nurse... it's like anything, it is what you make it.

[nursemike, ASN, RN]

I've heard and read, here and there, that men are sometimes to prone to conflate what we do with who we are. I think I get that, but I've come to feel a nurse may not be who I am, but it is what I am. I started working at my hospital in the hope of getting into Facilities Management. After years of an uneven living in the building trades, I was ready for a steady paycheck and predictable hours. The job I got offered was entry-level healthcare--it didn't pay much more than a fast-food job, but it turned out I really enjoyed it, and my favorite parts were interacting with patients. So I became a nurse, and after a rocky first year, my saying became, "I love my stupid job." It is hard work, but a lot like carpentry, as I got better at it, it got easier, and also harder, but at least the newer hard parts were interesting.

Then I was out for a year on medical leave, and for a lot of that time things like getting from my bed to the bathroom were hard work. I was very fortunate in my recovery and able to return to work, but getting back to bedside nursing was a major challenge. My employers were extremely encouraging and had some reassuring words about less physically demanding roles I might be able to work in, but what had become crystal-clear to me was that bedside nursing was the prize I had my eyes on.

Nursing is a stressful field. Some of the stress comes with the territory. Some of it is pointless. Most of it is a mixture of the two. It still peeves me a bit that entering into the MAR that I've given a saline flush can take 4-or-5 clicks of a mouse. Giving morphine takes two--and one of those (pain scale) is arguably dumb. I came out of nursing school all excited about the art and science of nursing (still am) but not entirely prepared for the business of nursing. And I do still find that there are serious problems in nursing, many of which seem more related to the business aspect. I'm sure we've all felt at one time or another that we've had to fight our facilities in order to care for our patients. Still, the business of healthcare lets e make a modest living working two 12-hr shifts a week, doing meaningful work that I enjoy. It isn't for everybody, but if you're lucky, it might be for you.

[Flatline, BSN, RN]

I tell every young man asking career advice to become a nurse.

To be young, single, and making a decent living in a profession where you are surrounded by women working in high stress environments who sometimes need a way to relieve that stress...

Wow...good times.

[nursemike, ASN, RN]

Even an old fart can enjoy the scenery.

[LPN2BECanada]

I'm an Asian working as a HCA in Canada (CNA in the US) and we get the stereotyping as we are the ones taking away the jobs of white care aides. But then, that's not true. It's not true for nurses. The real reason why we have so many foreign nurses coming in and working is because, the demand for nurses and CNAs are rising to address the rising need for dementia and other care and that the cost are also rising. To combat this rise, new technology platform for health care are being implemented using intelligent scheduling to make efficient use of the labour pool in health care. And it is also being used in other industries as well. It's called the "Gig" economy. When I was working in corporate as a manager, we use this type of scheduling and treat people as resources. The days of stable work and predictable hours are gone. It is now about how we can manage human resources efficiency. The sad part is that, some people blame this instability on foreign workers taking our jobs away. It might look this way because they are taking those difficult shifts and not you and me and so, it may seem like there's no job prospects in nursing. Like anything else, you need to find your own niche. What can you do in nursing that is better than other people can do and then you specialize on that. That way, very few people can replace you or exploit you.

[Fiona59]

I'm an Asian working as a HCA in Canada (CNA in the US) and we get the stereotyping as we are the ones taking away the jobs of white care aides. But then, that's not true. It's not true for nurses. The real reason why we have so many foreign nurses coming in and working is because, the demand for nurses and CNAs are rising to address the rising need for dementia and other care and that the cost are also rising. To combat this rise, new technology platform for health care are being implemented using intelligent scheduling to make efficient use of the labour pool in health care. And it is also being used in other industries as well. It's called the "Gig" economy. When I was working in corporate as a manager, we use this type of scheduling and treat people as resources. The days of stable work and predictable hours are gone. It is now about how we can manage human resources efficiency. The sad part is that, some people blame this instability on foreign workers taking our jobs away. It might look this way because they are taking those difficult shifts and not you and me and so, it may seem like there's no job prospects in nursing. Like anything else, you need to find your own niche. What can you do in nursing that is better than other people can do and then you specialize on that. That way, very few people can replace you or exploit you.

Most healthcare jobs on Canada are in union environments. Availability and often seniority will determine what shifts you get.

Government funding of educational courses for immigrants is seeing in increase in ethnic diversity in healthcare.

Funding determines the number of nurses and aides hired. There is no mass hiring of overseas nurses, and it's hard for locally educated new grads to find work in many areas of Canada.

Exploit? Maybe in non-union, for profit, or family hire situations. I've heard horror stories over the years of what some families expect from PSWs.

[LPN2BECanada]

Most healthcare jobs on Canada are in union environments. Availability and often seniority will determine what shifts you get.

Government funding of educational courses for immigrants is seeing in increase in ethnic diversity in healthcare.

Funding determines the number of nurses and aides hired. There is no mass hiring of overseas nurses, and it's hard for locally educated new grads to find work in many areas of Canada.

Exploit? Maybe in non-union, for profit, or family hire situations. I've heard horror stories over the years of what some families expect from PSWs.

Moving forward into the future, I think gradually some healthcare jobs in Canada will be privatized. In fact, the liberal government allowed An Bang Insurance Corporation (A Chinese for profit corporation), behind closed doors, to secretly purchase Retirement Concepts. After the purchase, there is a noticeable decline in quality of care and service and promotion of a toxic environment.

I agree that it is difficult for locally new grads to find work if you didn't come out of top schools and have top references. Like in British Columbia, Canada. If you're not graduated from Vancouver Community College, Langara, Douglas, BCIT and UBC and Kwantlen, did top notch job at your preceptorship and you don't have 3 references from RNs, then it is indeed very difficult to find work in many areas of Canada. I was lucky enough to have 3 highly commendations from the RNs at my preceptorship which was the reason I got hired less than a month after graduation. But I know others have extreme difficulty landing a job.

Exploitation of work basically is the lack of education among some of the health care workers. And that is, there is a law that allows you to refuse unsafe work! It's plastered all over union run facilities and many reminders of that. While some profit run agencies do remind workers about this right, many people get into trouble when they start accepting work they know is unsafe, but did them anyhow because of fear of loosing shifts.

I had a home support client who require a shower daily and his situation was his family refused him to have a shower chair inside the tub. So the home support worker would climb out several flights of stairs to bring the chair from the garage into his tub inside the house and assemble it and then disassemble and bring it down every single day after use. Initially I refused citing unsafe work, but providing him with bed baths. Then finally out of frustration, he basically told me to do what he says or else I'm fired. Well guess what, he let me go because I refused to do unsafe work and it was the law and my agency supported my claims. Some clients don't really care about PSWs safety. They thought that just because they pay us means we are their slaves.

I believe he went and found another agency with people willing to do the unsafe work that I refused.

My sister also works for an outsource agency for hotels and restaurants and there to, some hotels promote unsafe work, which is working against Canadian labour laws. When she cited those, guess what, she lost the shifts. So many people tend to keep their mouth shut and you only hear horror stories because some of them are either injured or abused, because need to make a living and employers know that they had no choice but to rely on outsourcing companies and agencies.

[dagobah, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

...there are no nursing jobs. People from overseas come here by the boat and take jobs...

When I was in my RN-to-BSN program, we were lumped in with the entry-level BSN students. So, you all can imagine the wide range of ages and mentality. One group sat on other while the other sat on the other side of the room. Class had a discussion on nursing shortage, and a young entry level nursing student talked about foreign nurses. Clearly, she sounded resentful and bitter. I had to chime in. My question/though I posed was, "What North-American born nurse would want to stay in for the long haul in med-surg, floor nursing, or any type of nursing where it is perceived or felt like hard work?"Answer is no one. At least most no one for over a year in that position. It never gets filled to keep up with the demands. That's my thought on that. It's not the foreign nurses fault Dudernguy. I'm not a foreign nurse. American as apple pie.

[FrankRN2017]

I totally agree!!! Corporate has destroyed nursing. Nursing SUCKS!!!! Chose another career you will eventually hate it!!

[Workitinurfava, BSN, RN]

I don't like the conditions but I like nursing and taking care of people.

[T.McNasterson]

This has to be a fake post. Your grammar is horrifying. You couldn't possibly be an ADN.