i was just on another nursing message board, my first time there and the first post i read is this really negative view of nursing ( i attatched it at the bottom in red). warning us students to reconsider. i don't know about all of you student nurses but it really gets my goat because here i am getting excited about going into this profession and i feel a lot of people try to burst your bubble and to tell you the truth all of these negatives about nursing is really bothering me. some people can make you feel as if you're actually stepping into the pits of hell. :angryfire i understand some people are just bitter, maybe the job wasn't for them. whatever the reason, it does scare me....a lot. i have worked as a na in a nursing home. i know that this is some hard sh*it! but dang, is it really that bad? by the way, i really did not like that job because no one would help me, plus i didn't like to cry on a daily basis because i was uneducated and left on my own. i am a much too happy person for that kind of misery. i have been in many unfullfilling careers and one of the reasons i wanted to be a nurse was the teamwork and the professionalism of it. i'm starting to find out there isn't a lot of professionalism involved and a lot of bitter people. is this true? anyone else agitated and scared like me? maybe i'll feel better tomorrow. sigh.
p.s. i've been informed copying and pasting a post is "socially incorrect", so to speak. sorry for that, so here is the link incase needed. :)
I don't doubt there are problems with nursing jobs. Look at any jobs board. You'll see people telling everybody to get out of every profession (lawyers, teachers, etc.) I mean ... a lot of jobs do suck. :chuckle
BUT, unlike other professions, the demand for nursing is high and will continue to grow. Which means you have lots of options if one job doesn't work out.
I see a couple of problems with that nurse's post. For one thing, check the rules of your state BON. In California, for example, you cannot be charged with patient abandonment if you refuse to work OT.
And, in California we have a ratio law which, by most accounts, has made work loads more manageable by reducing the number of patients per nurse. This person probably worked in a non-union/non-ratio state.
Pay may be lousy in other places, but USA Today recently reported that new grads here are making up to $60,000 a year. And the California Nurses Association (the union in this state) has been negotiating 20 percent or more pay raises in their contracts. So at least some nurses are getting pretty good pay raises here.
Consequently, I either plan to work for a union facility, where you can't be forced to work OT or holidays. Or work for one of the hospital chains that glady complied with the ratio law early, and has actually gotten the number of patients down to four per nurse, well below what the law requires. Hopefully, it's a sign this particular employer is friendly towards nurses.
And, if worse comes to worse, I'll get out of bedside nursing all together. Complaining nurses never point out that at least a third of nursing jobs don't involve the bedside at all. I know happily employed nurses who work for drug companies, blood banks, regulatory agencies, insurance carriers, law firms, nursing schools, theme parks, etc.
There are always options. You just have to do some homework on employers and employment options, and be willing to make changes to avoid trouble.
I'm just a student nurse myself. My mother, aunt, and 2 uncles are nurses, however, and they all have very positive, very encouraging things to say about the nursing profession. They have all been nurses for well over 15 years! :) I agree with Tweety, this very unhappy ex-nurse needs to move on!
I can only speak for myself..I love nursing...I HATE the stresssss involved a LOT of the time....they really need to add Stress Management courses in the nursing programs IMO.
I don't doubt there are problems with nursing jobs. Look at any jobs board. You'll see people telling everybody to get out of every profession (lawyers, teachers, etc.) I mean ... a lot of jobs do suck. :chuckle
I have to agree with Liz here. I think every job I have had has negative things about them. Life is what you make of it. I do think going in without blinders as this board helps people do, is a good thing. If you can read the negative posts and still keep sight of why you want to be in the medical community then it should work out OK. Also, the comments about hospitals not being the only place a nurse can work.
For those complaining about the copy and paste of the comments in red, there is a report button at the bottom of that post. Maybe the actual post can be removed and a link only there.:)
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
For every nurse I've met who hates her job and tries to dissuade anyone from entering the profession, there are an equal number of nurses who love what they do, say they never have regretted it, and have given me encouraging words for entering nursing school.
I imagine it is what you make of it. IME, there are people who are just unhappy, period.
Better get a reality check. The "red ink" posted was pretty much true, with the exception of the statement about every nurse wanting to get out. However I think about half the people I work with talk nightly about what else they want to do besides nursing.
The post isn't negative talk about nursing just for the heck of making something sound bad. It's the reality of the job. If you aren't prepared to deal with that, then look for something that has fewer drawbacks.
"So before you jump on the "nursing shortage is good for me" bandwagon, ask your self what you want out of your job...if it's respect and upward income potential, you may want to look elsewhere...remember, there's a reason there's a nursing shortage...."
I agree that lousy working conditions probably have contributed to the shortage. But so has the aging RN workforce (retirements and deaths jumped by 150,000 in the last survey). As well as high failure rates both in pre-reqs and nursing school itself (up to 90 percent at my school.)
If the existing RN pool is getting older, and potential entrants experience high failure rates, certainly these factors contribute to the shortage as well. But complaining nurses never talk about it.
Not to mention, aging baby boomers are expected to increase nationwide RN demand by 11,000 vacant positions just this year alone ... 800,000 projected vacancies in the next 16 years.
The reasons for the shortage are pretty complicated and is not necessarily an indication that most nurses are unhappy in their jobs.
Whine whine whine whine. Good thing this person is leaving, I wouldn't want someone like this taking care of anyone I knew anyway. She/he probably got into it for the money alone and then realized it was actual work with real respondability. Sorry, but I've already heard all of this before a 100 times and have worked in healthcare for 8 years and is hasn't stopped me yet. Healthcare has been in trouble for years. Nurses do work extremly hard with a large amount of responsability. Does money alone compensate for that? No, but there is more to it than that. Will you have to work all shifts, weekends and holidays. Yes. People don't just get sick from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Hospitals are not banks. Mandation. I used to mandated all the time when I worked as a phleb. There were times when I'd work an 8 hour night shift and then be mandated to work an 8 hour dayshift on top of that for a total of 16 hours. Why is there a nursing shortage? Because the hospitals created it (in my area anyway). The hospitals did huge layoffs in nursing in the late 90's to compensate for the HMO'S. These nurses that got layed off found different professions and never returned. The babyboomers are getting older, thus new hospitals are being built, floors are being added onto hospitals to accomadate this, new nursing homes are being built, so therefore it is hard to find enough nurses to staff and accomadate all of this. Not to mention nursing school is not easy. My college only puts out about 25-30 GN's once a year each May. Not sure how many pass their boards, but we have 8 hospitals in the area and a countless amount of nursing homes and visiting nursing agencies with onlly 2 other nursing schools around, so is 75 GN's once a year enough to staff all of these facilities? No! So what if a doctor rips your head off. I'll be there to advocate for my patients. If I get my feelings heart because of that, then that only means that I am doing my job. Sorry so long, it just irks me when someone says this to a student about the profession. Many of us already know what it is going to be like and still want to do it. I can't imagine a job with more satisfaction than to watch someones progress right before your very eyes, and to know that I had a part in that makes all of the politics worth it to me.
Lol, bring on the flames because my opinion always is the more you know the better. She has more experience obviously than we do and I consider her opinion to be of value. If nothing else, you get a heads up for what's to come and are not perhaps as shell shocked by it as you otherwise may have been. Also, use it as a spring board for discussion with other nurses... "You know, a nurse made these comments one time.... What's your take on that? Do you agree?" I'd always rather know the good, the bad, and the ugly and as far as I'm concerned the opinions of two people can often give you a clearer picture than just the opinions of one... but then I'm a sucker for honesty.
I agree that other perspectives are important, even from nurses who hate their jobs. It's certainly prompted me to do more research on the job market and working conditions in my area.
On a side note, I thought this particular statement was kinda funny:
"Are the educational requirements too hard (like a nuclear physicist)??? No...Does it cost a lot of money to become a nurse??? Not anymore than other jobs...Does it take a long time to become a nurse??? 2 years...."
Did this former RN take pre-reqs? Because I haven't heard of anyone who's been able to knock it all out in two years.
And I have yet to meet anyone in nursing school who didn't think it was hard. The high failure rates in pre-reqs and, of course, nursing programs would seem to confirm that.
Maybe it's not nuclear physics, but it sure is tough.
Sheri257
3,905 Posts
I don't doubt there are problems with nursing jobs. Look at any jobs board. You'll see people telling everybody to get out of every profession (lawyers, teachers, etc.) I mean ... a lot of jobs do suck. :chuckle
BUT, unlike other professions, the demand for nursing is high and will continue to grow. Which means you have lots of options if one job doesn't work out.
I see a couple of problems with that nurse's post. For one thing, check the rules of your state BON. In California, for example, you cannot be charged with patient abandonment if you refuse to work OT.
And, in California we have a ratio law which, by most accounts, has made work loads more manageable by reducing the number of patients per nurse. This person probably worked in a non-union/non-ratio state.
Pay may be lousy in other places, but USA Today recently reported that new grads here are making up to $60,000 a year. And the California Nurses Association (the union in this state) has been negotiating 20 percent or more pay raises in their contracts. So at least some nurses are getting pretty good pay raises here.
Consequently, I either plan to work for a union facility, where you can't be forced to work OT or holidays. Or work for one of the hospital chains that glady complied with the ratio law early, and has actually gotten the number of patients down to four per nurse, well below what the law requires. Hopefully, it's a sign this particular employer is friendly towards nurses.
And, if worse comes to worse, I'll get out of bedside nursing all together. Complaining nurses never point out that at least a third of nursing jobs don't involve the bedside at all. I know happily employed nurses who work for drug companies, blood banks, regulatory agencies, insurance carriers, law firms, nursing schools, theme parks, etc.
There are always options. You just have to do some homework on employers and employment options, and be willing to make changes to avoid trouble.