Nurses talk to one another, that is a fact. You want to learn something about something ask nurses.
What I am hearing is frightening. the profession of nursing is in crisis. New grads can't get jobs unless they have experience but can't get experience without being able to get a job. Nurses wanting to quit nursing because they are stressed and over worked. Nurses working incredible amounts of hours. Nurses working without the support of administration. More and more non-patient care work being put on nurse
What are the rest of you hearing? Sure I hear some good stuff, but by far the negative is outweighing the good. What does the future of nursing look like? What is your opinion one nurse to another? What can we do to make nursing a good, healthy profession that people want to be a part of and stay apart of?
Is nursing really in crisis and dying. What is your opinion?
Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
When I graduated as an LVN I was offered jobs in the hospital, LTC & PDN. I'm sure it's not the same any more especially as more & more hospitals want to get rid of LVNs. Also the pay was much better. But I'm not concerned. I know if I go back to work (or school then work) I can get a job.
I agree with TheCommunter, there are plenty of areas of this country where new grads have no trouble finding jobs. I think its is more uncommon for new grads to struggle to find jobs than visa versa. I live in Tennessee in one of the largest cities in the state and everyone in my BSN graduating class had jobs two months before graduation. Most of us went to the local level 1 trauma teaching hospital in their desired specialty, but others chose a different local hospital system or moved back home. Another factor most people dont mention is the school you go to, not all schools have the same reputation and hospitals may choose to hire students from X school before Y school. All in all nursing is a great profession when trying to find your first, second, third or tenth job. Most majors and careers are much harder to break into and some your are almost always forced to move to find initial employment in your field. As for the other problems you mentioned they are also not exclusive to nursing. Every job has its struggles, very very few people have a perfect job they love and there will always be something to complain about. Everyone thinks their job is the hardest in the world and whatever job someone else does is the easiest. Most people in any field of work you ask will tell you they are over worked, always stressed and get little to no support from their bosses. But I count my blessings knowing that I am able to work in a career I chose in a nice hospital instead of working manual labor in the heat of summer and freeze of winter doing something I hate.
These are two huge subjects: the new grad problem and the crisis in nursing. They are related but two different things. The fact new grads can't get training has the same roots as why nursing is such a difficult profession right now. As far as the nursing problems the biggest hurdle is the lack of staff. Another big problem is the functions nurses are suppose to do such as administrative, computer data entry and so many others, should be spread and divided with resource nurses (and that rarely happens).
The main problem in my view is that there is a model of health care that is very complex, but not sufficient staff to carie out; it is filled with tasks that only a nurse can sign but there aren't enough nurses, so the tasks pile up and nurses have to do overtime. The end result is a noticeable imbalance in the workforce; nurses are overworked and stressed while the rest of the staff is not even aware of it.
One of the problems I see is that administration is divorced from the floor. They stay in their relatively quiet offices designing "the perfect workflow" but many administrators have never worked on the floor or have worked in many years ago. So they come up with a workflow that is unrealistic or simply impossible to execute. What surprises me is how unaware of the workload and time constraints nurses are against by the bosses who see their complaints as "unrealistic". With the addition of electronic charting things get even worse.
Computers have made some tasks easier but overall I believe they have not contribute to better patient care. I feel as if I spend most of my time in front of a computer rather then seeing patients. It literally comes down to telling the patient: "sorry I can't take care of your right now because i'm charting I taking care of you". The times I spend in front of the computer is when I think I don't want to work as a nurse anymore because that was not what I envisioned as patient care.
In the end of the day is "health care for profit" is to blame. The bottom line is to make more money and nurses are the biggest part of payroll. Just do the math and it is pretty simple. Less nurses more profits, obviously not to the patients. Things might get even worse with the Trump administration that will try to break all the unions and worker's rights.
But it is constantly changing and right now it seems that we are somehow moving towards a breaking point where some decision will have to be made. The way nursing is set up and the way tasks and responsibilities are added to nurses while taking away resources (including nursing assistants) - which does not result in the requested "high value care."
Can a nurse discharge in speed time while caring for other patients who have q 2 h medications, run to bed alarms, walk the patient to the bathroom (because the nursing assistants are few and busy), and prepare for an admission and re-assess for pain?? Yeah that nurse somehow might do all of that in speedtime and check for MD orders - but - discharge teaching may not happen that much and the nurse probably is not going to ask the patient or family if all the medications listed are known and such. This kind of scenario has resulted in re-admissions - I actually just talked to somebody who was re-admitted because the whole discharge plan was unclear to the patient, which led to worsening of symptoms.
Unfortunately, the nurses get blamed quickly instead of looking at the system that sets everybody up to fail. Value based purchasing??? The idea is great - but execution - as too often in healthcare - is lacking...
Nursing is not dying but the way it is now with finances driving all healthcare decisions is not working for anybody.
I guess it will take the "consumer" and the "consumer family" who should be the ones complaining to the paying entities (Medicare/Medicaid/ commercial) that there are simply not enough nurses and - a huge part of the problem - NEVER enough nursing aids to provide the basic care for our sicker population. The days where you had a mix of walkers and "independent" patients are long gone. Pretty much everybody is a fall risk, needs assist with most ADLs, and confusion / delirium/ sundowning has become the norm.
From what I've been told, the demand for nursing is cyclical, but one thing has remained true: wages have been stagnant for quite some time. It kills me to hear nurses were making 20/hr in the early nineties while I was offered less than 24-25/hr in 2015 (after searching nearly four months for a job). Nursing is very saturated, but in the next ten years, the demand in home health, LTC, and rehab nursing is set to soar as more baby boomers start to retire and age out of the workforce (including nurses in this age demographic) and care is moved out of the hospital setting to save costs.
We are underpaid and overworked, but the beauty of nursing is that there is so much to do besides bedside nursing/shift work. I have been a nurse for almost two years, and in that short time, I have been exposed to so much and have taken care of patients as young as a few minutes old to patients in their hundreds.
Very few careers have the diversity of nursing and the stability that it offers. My job is never going overseas and lay offs are less likely to occur in the healthcare profession than in business, etc.
OrganizedChaos, LVN
1 Article; 6,883 Posts
When I graduated as an LVN I was offered jobs in the hospital, LTC & PDN. I'm sure it's not the same any more especially as more & more hospitals want to get rid of LVNs. Also the pay was much better. But I'm not concerned. I know if I go back to work (or school then work) I can get a job.