Nurses Who Shouldn't be Nurses

atlanta · Jun 17, 2005

I totally agree. I work in a hospital where we have lots of nursing students come through. All they talk about is how much they are going to be making. To be completely honest, there are only a handful of them that I would want taking care of me or any of my family. I I didn't even make twice as much as I had as a CNA). It was about "where can I go and make a difference in someone's life "(for the better of the person, not my bank account).

It is absolutely OK to talk about the pay in nursing. Nursing is physically and mentally demanding. We should be rewarded for hard work. It is a part of job satisfaction in any career. I wonder if anyone want to get pay $10/hr for nursing job. Everyone works for money but with good ethics and sense of duty, good people who may don't completely like nursing will take reponsibility and will be able to provide and safe and effective care. My mother DOES not like nursing, but everyone say that she is a good nurse. One doesn't have to like nursing to become a good nurse. Remember, if they are not safe, they are at risk of losing license, respect for their peer, and their job too... so they will try to be good even though they may not like nursing.

We need all of them who have different degree of passion in nursing.

If we only accept those who absolutely like nursing, we will probably eliminate 25% of the workforce.

mycotton · Jun 18, 2005

Have you been sued? I've been a nurse for 12 years. Fill me in, I'm all ears.

No I've never been sued. I am, however, a Legal Nurse Consultant. You have no idea what kind of responsibilities you hold on those shoulders. We are with the patient 24/7, and if something goes wrong, they're coming after you. If you don't feel a situation is safe or if you don't feel comfortable taking care of a patient due to lack of experience, tell the supervisor, and chart it if nothing is done. Good Luck. I am lucky to be in a hospital where documentation is a religion, and there is a policy for almost everything you can think of . I appreciate this, and value that in my institution. Nurses are legally liable to conform to "Standards of Care", whether or not an institution enforces such Standards. The trick is "finding" the "Standards of Care". hmmmm. :coollook:

marylyric · Jun 19, 2005

It is absolutely OK to talk about the pay in nursing. Nursing is physically and mentally demanding. We should be rewarded for hard work. It is a part of job satisfaction in any career. I wonder if anyone want to get pay $10/hr for nursing job. Everyone works for money but with good ethics and sense of duty, good people who may don't completely like nursing will take reponsibility and will be able to provide and safe and effective care. My mother DOES not like nursing, but everyone say that she is a good nurse. One doesn't have to like nursing to become a good nurse. Remember, if they are not safe, they are at risk of losing license, respect for their peer, and their job too... so they will try to be good even though they may not like nursing.
We need all of them who have different degree of passion in nursing.
If we only accept those who absolutely like nursing, we will probably eliminate 25% of the workforce.

you could not have explain it better. I totally agree with you!!!!!!

Tweety, BSN, RN · Jun 19, 2005

DUH!!! I think thats the point, flipping burgers doesn't pay 30.00/hr

DUh...gee, reallly?

bobnurse · Jun 19, 2005

I think the point is that many of us would rather be nurses even if flipping burgers did pay $30/hr.

If you got payed 30 bucks to flip a burger, wow, it would cost the consumer 20 bucks to get a big mac.

nursemike, ASN, RN · Jun 19, 2005

If you got payed 30 bucks to flip a burger, wow, it would cost the consumer 20 bucks to get a big mac.

How much for a Quarter Pounder?

BTW: Any guesses what the single largest expense at a McDonald's is?

z's playa · Jun 19, 2005

How much for a Quarter Pounder?
BTW: Any guesses what the single largest expense at a McDonald's is?

Insurance? Grease?

Z

hippie nurse 1985 · Jun 20, 2005

:nurse: :nurse:

Like someone said earlier there are certainly people that go into the profession for the money, and you will find this in every profession. But it is my opinion that it's those that truely care and love the profession that stay. Those that go into it for the money won't last when they see how hard the work is....and there's always hope that those that go into it for the money quickly learn that you can get a lot more out of nursing than an income
Elaine

i want to be a nurse becaue i love to help people and i dont care about the money i care about the people :nurse:

bobnurse · Jun 20, 2005

How much for a Quarter Pounder?
BTW: Any guesses what the single largest expense at a McDonald's is?

cheese?

What is it?

sbic56, BSN, RN · Jun 20, 2005

How much for a Quarter Pounder?
BTW: Any guesses what the single largest expense at a McDonald's is?

Advertising?

Inkleberry · Jun 20, 2005

I began nursing because I love medacine, I enjoy people. I began this study in '94, dropped out because I got married, had some children and ended up working other jobs. I was a vet assistant and loved it. Caring for animals was so interesting and sad but just the same. I did not pick the vet tech program because where I live, it is not demand. I also found it frustrating as these patients cannot tell us what hurts, it is a guessing game. I began college in the fall of 2004. I had to get the pre-requisits out of the way and this fall I begin actual nursing. As a child I always had my nose in a medical book, diagnosing friends and myself. I love surgical pics and am hoping to be a med/surg nurse and letter persue forensic pathology. Just recently I learned how much I love microbiology and pathology.

Anyway, there are a plethora of people in the program at Alfred State. I was amazed with how many young ladies and gents were in it. I learned my first semester who would end up flunking out or getting kicked out. There are several girls with various facial piercings that refuse to remove them. They have been dropped from the program because not only is it unclean, but nursing isnt a freak show. The other girls and some guys had interpersonal issues, social anxiety and no people skills. Two that I personally know dropped out, the others, well it is a matter of time. Once we begin actual nursing, I believe they will be dropped. Alfred State has a very strict and professional program. Many things are not tolerated because they realise nursing is in demand and many students are in it for money alone. By the end of the final year, the class size shrinks dramaticly. Unlike Jamestown Community College, they pass you either way, bad attitude or not.

Aquamarine · Jun 20, 2005

Hi,

I agree that a lot of people are not cut out to work with people, yet providing some kind of care and encouragement. I was in an RN program at a Community College in NYS. Most all of the students had the capability to become good nurses. A lot think they are surgeons during the first semester but I figure they will soon learn in the field what the real deal is.

Unfortunately in my class a potentially good nurse, handed in homework later during the clinical experience...the dreaded Care Plan....and found out she was using the wrong form...she used the short, not the long. The instructor who had a rough home life, 2 handicapped kids, worked nights, no moral support from her husband was very late in correcting homework and told this student a day before the end of the clinical rotation. When she saw the wrong forms were used....she failed the student. She had an 82% average and all B's in the sciences. She was told not to come to lectures anymore (although passing and paid for them) and she was SOL. It was two weeks before she could have qualified for the LPN status even. This instructor had her own problems, could not hand back homework in time and this students money, time, and hopes for a career as a RN were wasted. I agree that getting rid of potentially bad nurses is in line but this was not the case.

I had done a care plan that took me 20-24 hours, she failed it because I did not have an action to call the MD for an elevated enzyme. I knew the MD had been called, I was a student and I only put down what I, me, myself would do, not what someone else had done. She failed a few others also that I had put in equal time. She cut classes short and said she had a mandatory meeting for her job to go to, at that hospital. I sat in my car that day, ate my lunch and did a finishing up on a care plan went back in to put it in her file there at the clinical site where we turned in homework. She was in her supervisors office flirting and I suspect that was the "mandatory meeting". Not only are students supposed to be professional but the instructors are also. Her job was to teach us not to attend a meeting...true or false. I brought some of my failures in to the other insturctors and they went to her and said they would have passed them. She changed her tune, gave me extra time, etc etc. I would have fought her like a lion. What a shame. I was lucky, I did the right thing at the right time. But that girl that failed out of the program, got all F's, cannot get into another school, cannot even get a job as an aide. They assume there was a bad and justified reason she flunked out and don't want to take the risk. I still feel so badly for her. She is an awesome person, mature, and would have been an awesome nurse. She came in to the school, nursing dept., and asked to appeal it...she was given a day to appear before the board...all the instructors. No one disliked this girl. The day she came in the office I was in there. The director said..."do you have anything other than what you already told me?" the girl said no, thinking it was enough. The director said then " don't even bother then, you don't need to go before the board, that is not enough". So she was tried and hung by an inifficient director. Case dropped. She went to the dean of nursing later...he agreed with the director. The director, mind you, had been asked to resign for not running a very good program and is under the gun of the NYS education dept. and the NLN, the school may lose it credentialling for the RN program. So this girl was the sacrificial lamb for bad management, bad instructors, bad whatever. What about her?

The part time instructors and some of the full timers work too many jobs, have families, no time to correct homework in a timely fashion. There certainly is not a need for students with the waiting list in the 400-500's. So now the instructors have you by the back of the neck. Who is governing them? Another instructor used to come to clinical after working a 16 hr. shift, she was also working on her Masters, had an ill husband. She was so tired she was as white as a ghost, how can you be on your toes? A first semester student gave an IM to the worong patient! Where was this instructor? It was her first IM, we just started giving meds. They played that one right down because the blame would have been on the instructor.

We had instructors talking about other students to other students. We had an instructor tell us she could read out Auras and she knew only five people in the class liked her...what kind of professionalism is that?

We had to shut up and put up or we would become part of the politics and end up looking for aide jobs also.

So my point is don't just look at the students...look at the reasons the school lets them in to begin with ($$$$$) and also look at the instructors.

I toook a board review class at a local college that had a RN?BN program....that school started out with 82 and graduated 24....what's up with that? They sure did take all thier money to keep the payroll up....how could you be that wrong about that menay students.

I think the NLN and the State Ed. Dept. should look at some of those numbers.

Thanks...Nancy

I began nursing because I love medacine, I enjoy people. I began this study in '94, dropped out because I got married, had some children and ended up working other jobs. I was a vet assistant and loved it. Caring for animals was so interesting and sad but just the same. I did not pick the vet tech program because where I live, it is not demand. I also found it frustrating as these patients cannot tell us what hurts, it is a guessing game. I began college in the fall of 2004. I had to get the pre-requisits out of the way and this fall I begin actual nursing. As a child I always had my nose in a medical book, diagnosing friends and myself. I love surgical pics and am hoping to be a med/surg nurse and letter persue forensic pathology. Just recently I learned how much I love microbiology and pathology.
Anyway, there are a plethora of people in the program at Alfred State. I was amazed with how many young ladies and gents were in it. I learned my first semester who would end up flunking out or getting kicked out. There are several girls with various facial piercings that refuse to remove them. They have been dropped from the program because not only is it unclean, but nursing isnt a freak show. The other girls and some guys had interpersonal issues, social anxiety and no people skills. Two that I personally know dropped out, the others, well it is a matter of time. Once we begin actual nursing, I believe they will be dropped. Alfred State has a very strict and professional program. Many things are not tolerated because they realise nursing is in demand and many students are in it for money alone. By the end of the final year, the class size shrinks dramaticly. Unlike Jamestown Community College, they pass you either way, bad attitude or not.