Nurse shortage is fake news?

[MedicRN230]

I’m questioning if there is really a nursing shortage? More specifically, I question if there is anything being done to solve the nursing shortage? I’m pretty sure it is real, my triage wait times have increased, sometimes it’s over an hour wait. So yes, I answered my first question, it’s yes! However, I wonder what’s being done to address it? I have applied to over 50 listings for nursing positions and received only 3 callbacks by recruiters. The phone interviews led mostly nowhere. I’ve had only one in person interview, which was actually an interview day that one recruiter invited me to attend, this led to a second interview a few days later with a floor manager and an offer of employment. After the hiring process being delayed on their end with little to no communication, I decided to rescind my offer to work for them. All this being said, where is the supposed emergency for nurses to fill vacancies? 

Not to blow smoke up my own ***, I realize I have no “real” bedside nursing experience. However, I’ve been a paramedic in a busy area for 17 years. I’m a licensed RN with bcls and ACLS credentials, as well as many other ems specific credentials. I also have experience as a transplant coordinator. If there were such a shortage, wouldn’t these facilities be looking to fill these vacancies any way possible? 

Are there any management/hr folks that could shed some light on this? Is there really a crisis? Wouldn’t you be better off training a part time nurse willing to work for the long term as opposed to a traveler getting triple pay on a 12 week contract? Am I deluded or does nothing make sense any more, post covid?

[londonflo]

1 hour ago, MedicRN230 said:

Am I deluded or does nothing make sense any more, post covid?

We are still in an active phase of covid, not post. 

1 hour ago, MedicRN230 said:

After the hiring process being delayed on their end with little to no communication, I decided to rescind my offer to work for them.

Why did you do this without any further offers of employment? Hospital wheels roll slowly.  

1 hour ago, MedicRN230 said:

I realize I have no “real” bedside nursing experience. However, I’ve been a paramedic in a busy area for 17 years. I’m a licensed RN with bcls and ACLS credentials, as well as many other ems specific credentials. I also have experience as a transplant coordinator.

You are a neophyte RN. Accept that. I would review your resume to make sure the main point is a job as an RN. There are quite a few threads on here from paramedics who have made the transition to nursing. Search those. I respect all the skills and knowledge you have as a paramedic. Nursing is a whole different ball game. 

[MedicRN230]

Post covid- as in the opposite of pre covid

I turned the job down because I jumped through all the hoops and was left without any communication. It’s a sellers market, or so the news says, I deserved the respect of a heads up that my hiring would be delayed for 6 weeks. If I had been leaving my current job, I’d have already given 2 weeks notice and then been screwed without an income. Therefore, I decided not to work for a massive conglomerate, because they clearly do not value their prospective staff. This leads back to my question- does anybody really care about the shortage?

lastly, I understand my experience is limited. Although I am not just a medic, I did work in an RN capacity as a transplant coordinator. So yes, I get that my skill set does not completely transfer to the bedside nursing world, but it all leads to my initial question. Where is the nursing emergency, if most places don’t even acknowledge applicants, yet cry that all their staff is leaving for the travel/contract world? If they want to solve the shortage, there has to be some give on their end. All I asked was to be treated with some respect. I was more than willing to arrange my life to make the situation work with them, and in fact I had already done that, they need to make some effort on their end. In defense of the nursing manager, it was all the fault of the HR onboarding and corporate staff. 

Again, if it’s such a dire situation, where are the creative solutions? The status quo won’t solve it.

[MedicRN230]

Let me also make clear, this is a part time job for me. I have no intentions of leaving my full time job. Maybe they are less focused on part time jobs, although I suspect there is just no impetus to solve the shortage.

[2BS Nurse, BSN]

All departments are short-staffed right now including recruitment. Hiring was painfully slow even prior to the pandemic. 

[MedicRN230]

I guess that makes sense, and is contributing to the problem. But I see this as a similar situation to the supply chain crisis. Everyone seems to recognize there is a problem, and they all blame each other, yet there is no bold solutions to solve it. Nothing makes sense to me anymore, it’s like living in the upside down. 

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

With the huge healthcare corporations there is usually a remote HR and just a recruiter on the ground who may be an individual contractor and who may even be working for competitors at the same time.  So yes it is a slow process and if the competitor is offering a better wage and bonus package candidates would usually go with the other hospital system.

Back in the good old days when there were small local hospitals with an in house HR it was a much quicker and personalized process, at least that was my experience.  But with all the mergers, many places got rid of local HR to save money and may have only one national centralized HR with just local recruiters.  I know several of the new nurses almost took other jobs due to the slow process and that was before covid.  Also some got better offers and would quit during orientation or shortly after.  Some were supposed to get bonuses, but those were slow over six months to receive and some people were ready to quit over that as well.

What type of nursing position did you apply for?  I would think your medic experience would be especially relevant for ER, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't still need an orientation.  It sounds like you are more like a new grad than experienced as you have a non bedside job now that doesn't translate to bedside experience, albeit your medic experience would be helpful. 

I think you are being a bit impatient and taking the slow process as a personal insult, but I'm sure it just relates to the slow, drawn out process when you work for a huge healthcare corporation without a real local HR presence.  Also if there are other nurses applying who have bedside experience they may be preferred as they would need less orientation, especially for a part-time position.  Also even if part-time I would imagine you would need a full time orientation in the beginning, so check into that too since you are keeping your other job.  Would your current job allow you to take some time off to do this?

So my advice sell your medic experience, but also understand you are still essentially a new grad so I suggest some humility and also realize the slow process is not personal, it is just bureaucracy.  I believe you would be an excellent  addition especially in an ER where your medic experience would be valuable and very much appreciated by all your fellow coworkers!  Best of luck to you! 

 

[Monique Barber]

In ED and larger hospitals, but most rural hospitals are overstaffed, yet they continue to bring in contract nurses to suck up valuable opportunities even for normal pay. 

 

Another problem: Nursing Schools are pumping out nurses who just aren't prepared. I know, I'm one of them. I began working on December 6th, and although I love my job, I wish I had been better prepared. I personally get angry when I hear about the influx of new nurses because you know it's driven by money. Stupid people on Youtube, television, and on the Internet, in general, continue to brag about travel pay when we know this can't last. Also, wage compression is becoming a real thing, especially when just anyone can walk off the street get Bs, Cs, and Ds in pre-requisites and still get into colleges that are basically becoming diploma mills. I'm not exaggerating with that statement, I've heard so many local community colleges that SHOULD have taken their accreditation away for doctoring grades. 

[MedicRN230]

7 hours ago, brandy1017 said:

I think you are being a bit impatient and taking the slow process as a personal insult

 Brandy1017, most of what you said is true, with the exception of the above statement. My problem was with the fact that I had zero communication from anyone…that I took personal. I had to reach out to 6 different people after I was left hanging on my hire date, and that was the crux of the problem. I wouldn’t have minded if they gave me a heads up, or at least answered me when I contacted them. I’m well aware of my place as a new hire, and I was hired for a telemetry floor. I was going to do several weeks full time training, followed by months working with a preceptor. I had already made arrangements in order to make that happen with my other job. Again, a little communication would’ve gone a long way. I think in this case, they’re just too big, and don’t really care. To put it into perspective how big they are, this is a HUGE health system with their own inhouse recruiters. In fact, this place is so big that they have their own temp/contract employment service that hires nurses and then places them in travel contracts within their own facilities. The system employs 75,000 people….yes 75k! 
 

My experience aside, I’m just not so sure there is a real effort to solve the supposed nursing shortage. Every facility I go to, the nurses in the trenches claim they’re short staffed and drowning in patients. Meanwhile, they also tell me these places aren’t hiring enough. So call me a conspiracy theorist, but sometimes I think it’s deliberate. I think the administrations might be doing it because they can, and it saves them money. The nurses make it work, regardless of how short they are. I’ve seen a level 1 trauma center with a 33 bed er, run with 3 nurses on New Year’s Eve, one of those nurses was the triage nurse…that’s absurd! Like I said in an earlier post, nothing makes sense to me anymore. 
 

[beachbabe86]

WRONG in the Orlando area where my child is practicing medicine , there is a terrible nursing shortage. The ER is full and waiting for beds on the floors because there are no nurses to accept them.

 

[OUxPhys, BSN, RN]

The "nursing shortage" is self-inflicted by the large hospital systems. It certainly isn't due to a lack of schools or people going into nursing. This is what happens when administrators with no bedside experience make all the decisions. Decisions to go after stupid certifications like Magnet and Pathways to Excellence. You get rid of LPNs and ADN nurses, trying to only hire BSN nurses and then add on horrible/unsafe working conditions and poor pay and boom, you get a "nursing shortage". 

We all know what has to be done. So do the administrators making the decisions. They won't do it though because it cuts into profits and their pay and bonuses. 

I should point out this "shortage" was before covid. Now there is a legit shortage because nurses can work for an agency for 3-4 times what they were making and have better control over their work-life balance, not have to do charge. 

[2BS Nurse, BSN]

...and travel nurses don't have to work on projects in their spare time that they never had!!