Nurses leaving in droves...

fry.girl · Nov 4, 2004

I am currently a nursing student...when I first broke the news to my mother a year ago she was less than overjoyed. You see she is an RN of 26 years and had got stuck in the rut of abusive nursing position. She finally decided 5 years ago to put herself through college again for an IT degree. After graduating she landed a comfortable IT admin position and was very happy with her decision at the time of our conversation. Fortunately, I continued on with my dream of becoming a nurse.

A year later she was layed off from her IT job. Now she had settled for less than a nurses salary to take this job in the IT field, but after the lay off she couldn't even get an interview for anything else. Finally she gave in and interviewed for an RN position in HHC and was hired on the spot for top pay, next day assignment, and within a week was offered the opportunity for advancement. Needless to say she is on cloud nine! She told me this past weekend, that she had never tried something new in Nursing because she thought it would be the "same old thing" anywhere she went. She wishes now she had just gone down the street and applied for a new job instead of just giving up!

lifeisbeautiful · Nov 4, 2004

Anyone been exposed to the "Fresh Baked Bread" therapy? A manager read somewhere about this great therapy and instituted it. You would get your assignment and if it said BM after your name....

Thank goodness that when BM was after your name, they only wanted you to make bread :chuckle

Heck, if you want to pay me $30 an hour to make bread as oppose to wiping some homeless man's orifice, no problem!

Trauma-tizedRN · Nov 4, 2004

Thank goodness that when BM was after your name, they only wanted you to make bread :chuckle
Heck, if you want to pay me $30 an hour to make bread as oppose to wiping some homeless man's orifice, no problem!

Did you think that I meant making bread INSTEAD of wiping butt? Let me clarify......

Full assignment AND breadmaker. Sure....i'd take the 30/hr for breadmaking too!

RN4NICU, LPN, LVN · Nov 4, 2004

EquityWell, I am sort of surprised to hear this from seasoned nurses, but fortunately, you are the ones that have stayed and endured what I am just finding out! I graduated last year as an LPN and already am feeling the brunt of horrendous inconsideration by administration and the public. Wow! I never thought nursing was so hard and entailed so much more than patient care (which is hard enough as it is). Administration wants us to clock out on time, but also have everything done. And it is just not possible. So us dumb-dumbs will clock out, :angryfire go back to work to "finish up" to protect our licenses. Anybody else have to do this? When you look at it, the pay rate is actually much lower!

I would worry about my license practicing nursing off the clock. I am not sure your (or the hospital's) malpractice insurance will cover you if you do that. Not to mention the fact that requiring someone to work off the clock is illegal. Admin. needs to wake up to the fact that they can either have everyone out on time OR they can have everything done - but not both. If they want both, they have to do something about workloads. Yet, as long as people WILL clock out and go back to work, nothing will change.

I am pretty sure the labor board would have a few things to say about this situation if someone placed an anonymous call.

anna c · Nov 4, 2004

I, too, moved to another state and could not believe what I was being offered after 22 years of nursing. I was blatantly told that they are waiting for the new graduates at the local college so they can choose from them. My take was that they want to pay them the least amount of money and work them like dogs. I am in the "sunshine" state. What is sunny about it, I ask? I will never encourage anyone to go into nursing. When they ask me what I think? I tell them if they are looking for encouragement to go into nursing, they are asking the wrong person. Money matters...that is the bottom line....not the patient.

SmilingBluEyes · Nov 4, 2004

I, too, moved to another state and could not believe what I was being offered after 22 years of nursing. I was blatantly told that they are waiting for the new graduates at the local college so they can choose from them. My take was that they want to pay them the least amount of money and work them like dogs. I am in the "sunshine" state. What is sunny about it, I ask? I will never encourage anyone to go into nursing. When they ask me what I think? I tell them if they are looking for encouragement to go into nursing, they are asking the wrong person. Money matters...that is the bottom line....not the patient.

ah yes yes yes, the warm-body syndrome. Another big reason experienced nurses are walking away. new grads are sought and paid nearly what experienced are....and chosen over them for these very reasons! We are expendable resources, like so much toilet paper to some administrators.

mattsmom81 · Nov 4, 2004

I could see this one in court. "Yes, your honor, I was fired for not baking bread in the hospital. And your honor, I have never been trained in how to bake bread." :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Remember that old list of nurses duties 125 yrs ago...this sounds like we've come full circle.... :uhoh3: Back then they 'did it all' and cooked too.... :rolleyes:

Trauma-tizedRN · Nov 4, 2004

Remember that old list of nurses duties 125 yrs ago...this sounds like we've come full circle.... Back then they 'did it all' and cooked too....

Probably an admin ploy to sweeten up the nurses image.....to tie us back to old Flo for increased pt. satisfaction reports (as it turns out, like usual, poorer nurse satisfaction reported) It would be a great job for the auxill. ladies....wonder why it was not delegated there.....I am beginning to small a rat here....

mattsmom81 · Nov 4, 2004

ah yes yes yes, the warm-body syndrome. Another big reason experienced nurses are walking away. new grads are sought and paid nearly what experienced are....and chosen over them for these very reasons! We are expendable resources, like so much toilet paper to some administrators.

I just interviewed with a nurse owned company...what a breath of fresh air by the way...I'm pumped up!!!! :)

They are 'retired' critical care nurses and when they go into ICU to do acute HD they find inexperienced new grads and LPNs from medsurg in there...all over the metroplex , they all were adamant NO WAY will they go back today. What in tarnation is happening out there today?

They also shared (like me) they're scared to death something will happen...an MI with their spouse, accident with a child, etc and not be able to get a competent nurse caring for their loved ones in a crisis...this is just so wrong and we all agreed nurses need to bring this to the public. The public has a right to know what these facilities are doing.

RN4NICU, LPN, LVN · Nov 4, 2004

I, too, moved to another state and could not believe what I was being offered after 22 years of nursing. I was blatantly told that they are waiting for the new graduates at the local college so they can choose from them. My take was that they want to pay them the least amount of money and work them like dogs. I am in the "sunshine" state. What is sunny about it, I ask? I will never encourage anyone to go into nursing. When they ask me what I think? I tell them if they are looking for encouragement to go into nursing, they are asking the wrong person. Money matters...that is the bottom line....not the patient.

I think it is the "sunshine state" because sunshine seems to be some sort of magical currency there. Hospitals pay nurses with it, but nurses can't pay their bills with it. 'Sup with that??

What's more, after this past hurricane season, I think all those "we pay in sunshine" facilities owe their nurses some back pay. That's why I like to take my pay in good ol' American dollars.

Never met anyone that could stick his/her head as far up his/her orifice as a hospital administrator (I've seen some visitors and patient family members that could come DANG close, but still fall just a bit short...)

SmilingBluEyes · Nov 5, 2004

I just interviewed with a nurse owned company...what a breath of fresh air by the way...I'm pumped up!!!! :)
They are 'retired' critical care nurses and when they go into ICU to do acute HD they find inexperienced new grads and LPNs from medsurg in there...all over the metroplex , they all were adamant NO WAY will they go back today. What in tarnation is happening out there today?
They also shared (like me) they're scared to death something will happen...an MI with their spouse, accident with a child, etc and not be able to get a competent nurse caring for their loved ones in a crisis...this is just so wrong and we all agreed nurses need to bring this to the public. The public has a right to know what these facilities are doing.

wow!!! Good luck! You deserve this! let us know how it goes, ok?

tfrankern · Nov 5, 2004

:rotfl: you guys crack me up...i love the prostitute in a brothel thing...hahahaha....are there any administrators out there that read this stuff???? i'd love to be a fly on the wall and see the faces and comments at the board meeting that somebody gets guts enough to read these at....of course it'll never happen....i thought about leaving the "profession" many times and the only way i've been able to keep my sanity is to do agency and i traveled a bit....i've been trying to focus on what satisfaction i get from the personal aspects of the job....i may seem gooey at this point but i've been angry for about 10 years (which is how long i've been doing this craziness) and it hasn't helped me and the job and the administrators haven't changed, in spite of all the "gritching"?? i and many others have done (okay that word is a country thing..i can't help it, my country comes out sometimes)

my point here is that i don't do this for THEM i do it for me. And i certainly don't do it for the money. That was my other mistake. When i was a NA and making $6/hr i thought the RN's making $12/hr were just greedy and they should manage their money better, after all they were making twice what I did and blah blah blah....needless to say i learned quickly the more you make the more you spend. I am also working on living within my means these days and saving money rather than just blowing it on crap. the job is never going to change, and it's never gonna pay better so i gotta find a way to make it work for me.....tf