Nurses Marching Out Of Profession

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    Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

NURSES MARCHING OUT OF PROFESSION

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

A critical shortage of nurses is only expected to get worse. In Washington alone, the number of vacant positions grew from approximately 1,400 to 2,200 in the past year.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 4, 2002

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/73185_nurse04.shtml

SmilingBluEyes

20,964 Posts

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

Yep, being from WA and subscribing the SPI, I know what they are talking about. It is frightening.....to me. I wonder who will be left to work w/me in the future, and who will be there to care for me and my loved ones in years to come if we don't change this trend.

susanmary

656 Posts

Nurses will continue to leave our profession when they feel unsafe in their practice and they believe they are putting their license at risk due to staffing/acuity in the hospitals.

oramar

5,758 Posts

I have called attention before to the fine article Brian posted under nursing news. It is called Predicting Nursing Turnover. It deals with this very subject. I also found an article somewhere by Susanne Gordon called Hemorrhage in the Hospital. Unfortunately I forgot to bookmark the spot. I wish someone would post that one it was excellent. She is the same person who wrote that book we have all been talking about.

Home Health Columnist / Guide

NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN

10 Articles; 18,299 Posts

Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

COMMENTARY

A Hemorrhage in the Hospitals

By SUZANNE GORDON

June 3, 2002

LA TIMES (Free registration required)

Suzanne Gordon is the author of "From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public" (Cornell University Press, 2000).

http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2D000038996jun03

When it comes to the contemporary nursing shortage, hospitals insist that they have no choice but to implement short-term "solutions." There are, the American Hospital Assn. reports, 126,000 nursing vacancies nationwide, or 12% of capacity.

That's why, some hospitals argue, they have to offer as much as $10,000 in signing bonuses, $1,000 to $2,000 payments to nurses who refer another RN to a hospital and money to pay for moving and even living expenses, as well as for continuing education.

While the Don Juans of the hospital industry are out seducing a whole new crop of RNs, however, they are neglecting nurses already on their payrolls. At Catholic Healthcare West, which owns 38 hospitals in California, nurses' pay lags so far behind that nurses in the California Nurses Assn. last week staged a protest. To staff its units, Catholic Healthcare West, like many other hospital owners across the country, hires temporary nurses through local registries. These nurses can earn between $32 and $35 an hour.

Meanwhile, one nurse who has worked for one of Catholic Healthcare West's hospitals for 16 years told me that he "maxes out" at $27.82 an hour. This nurse asked: "Can you imagine how many nurses would come back to work for the system permanently if they made" the same amount as temporary nurses?

The chain has also sent recruiters as far as South Africa and the Philippines to troll for new nurses. In Sacramento, nurses who work for Catholic Healthcare West facilities have been asked to pick up foreign recruits at the airport, help them navigate the RN licensing process and lodge them in their homes. When expert nurses are asked to work with and orient new recruits who earn more than they make after 15 or 20 years of loyal service, the message is clear: If you want a raise, change employers, not once but over and over again.

Indeed, policies at hospitals throughout the country have created a whole new temporary work force of RNs who quit their jobs and sign on with traveling-nurse or temporary-nurse agencies. Sometimes these nurses return to their old employers--at a higher salary and with better schedules.

Given the industry's message to veteran nurses, it's no wonder that many nursing students view the hospital as the first rung on a career ladder that will take them "up" and away from direct bedside care.

This spring, I interviewed several hundred fourth-year nursing students in different university nursing schools across the country. When I asked them whether they wanted to do hospital nursing after graduation, about half to three-quarters raised their hands. How many, I asked, envision working in hospitals or in home care or clinics in 10 or 15 years? A few--sometimes no--hands went up.

These students believed that hospital nursing would be stifling, offer no opportunities for advancement and wouldn't pay enough. A couple of years in a hospital to gain experience would suffice before they moved on to what they considered challenging, well-paid work as nurse practitioners, managers, nurse midwives, researchers or nurse anesthetists.

The consequences of this short-term obsession with recruitment are potentially staggering. Forced to work with only new grads or temporary nurses, veteran nurses--who depend on the expertise of colleagues to take care of sicker and sicker patients--will find their work difficult to manage and will continue their exodus from the hospital.

Without experienced nurses to teach, orient, mentor and guide them, nurses new to an institution (or a country) will find it equally difficult to learn the skills that will move them from novice to expert. Frustrated at their inability to learn and grow, their views of hospital nursing will be confirmed and they will leave for the supposedly greener pastures of primary care, research or management. This will leave an aging, intensely ill population of patients in the hands of RNs who lack the kind of expertise only years on the job can provide.

Patients had better pray that assertive nurses are able to convince the hospital industry that its frenetic focus on recruitment--absent an equally serious commitment to nurse retention--is like trying to give a blood transfusion to someone whose bleeding hasn't been stopped. No matter how much new blood is added, the patient will eventually bleed to death.

Thanks for the tip Oramar....what understanding about our profession. I'd be her RN anyday.

oramar

5,758 Posts

OOOH that is the one, it is a goodie.

Well, that was enlightening. Hi, I'm from Philippines. A student nurse who currently is in search for journals to help my research about CPE....

All I could say is... I never thought about that....I guess, in our country, we are so desperate to improve our living that we haven't or atleast I haven't thought about the other side of the story.

Although we can't make up for the lack of experience and I am not exactly the right person to comment about this issue...I was just thinking that, the course nursing is slowly warming into my life....I mean, if you ask most of the students in Philippines why they take up nursing, they would reply with "it's more practical" So when I (an aimless wandered who havent found my dream yet) had to go to college, Nursing was the sole choice...

So are we one of the readers the article is aiming to make sense into? Just a curious student who is concerned.:confused:

allnurses Guide

JBudd, MSN

3,836 Posts

Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.
Without experienced nurses to teach, orient, mentor and guide them, nurses new to an institution (or a country) will find it equally difficult to learn the skills that will move them from novice to expert.

I've looked into the teaching positions open for masters level nurses: after paying over $7,000 out of pocket for my master's degree in nursing education, I would have to take a pay cut for a nontenured position at a community college (BSN programs want PhDs), as opposed to staying at the hospital I now work at as a BSN.

So, my choices are: stay in hospital and possibly precept, or go into teaching. Why bother with a master's degree! To be honest I am enjoying the classes (going back to school after more than 20 years was a bit odd though), and I'm doing it for me, but there are very few incentives for nurses to become educators from the money standpoint.

December716

82 Posts

The funny thing is, in Seattle it is INCREDIBLY difficult to become a nurse. The programs are so competetive, and the pay isn't all that great once you graduate (so I've heard), considering that the average house is astronomical and cost of living here is extremely high.

Keysnurse2008

554 Posts

Forced to work with only new grads or temporary nurses, veteran nurses--who depend on the expertise of colleagues to take care of sicker and sicker patients--will find their work difficult to manage and will continue their exodus from the hospital.

Written by NRSKAREN -Without experienced nurses to teach, orient, mentor and guide them, nurses new to an institution (or a country) will find it equally difficult to learn the skills that will move them from novice to expert. Frustrated at their inability to learn and grow, their views of hospital nursing will be confirmed and they will leave for the supposedly greener pastures of primary care, research or management.

NRSKAREN...very well written! I could not have said it better myself. I love having new grads....but when your unit is staffed with 90%+ of new grads to 5-10% of experienced CC nurses....it's not safe.The new grads want very much to do a good job...but you have to have knowledgable experienced nurses there at the bedside to "teach" them.Otherwise...as you said...it sets them up for failure...bc they will not have their leaarning needs met....and the patients will be at risk.These HCF's should be realizing the cost of not retaining experienced nurses....both in $$$$ and lives.

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