Nursing is pathetic...

nursedude · Sep 29, 1999

OKAY, HERE ARE SOME QUOTES...TO SUPPORT MY OPINION...NONE OF THESE QUOTES ARE MINE, THEY ARE FROM PREVIOUS POSTINGS ON THIS BB

As far as the number of job vacancies, my guess is that it is because the job is a challenge, the elderly can be frustrating at times, some nursing homes pay is poorer than others, and the working conditions vary from place to place as well. It can be a thankless job, ...

We are faced as all hospitals with down sizing our FTE's.

Our experience has been frustrating. We are feeling a loss of control over care and feeling "lost" trying to remember crucial details.

Striking nurses in Michigan ...to bring you to equal pay with other area nurses, as generous...is laughable. I hope that you get your salary increase. The second thing that I noticed was the mention of Bay City and Detroit hospitals are experiencing layoffs and salary decreases. AGAIN, IF IT WERE SO GOOD-WHY A UNION?

I subsequently went into a deeper depression

became suicidal and finally entered a treatment center by my own choice. I was appalled at the number of nurses who were in-patients at this facility....both for substance abuse and depression....This is a serious and rampant problem in our profession and it is being "swept under the rug".

One cannot apply to be a clerk in a convience store without submitting to a drug screen, yet NO hospital I have worked in for 23 years has ever demanded this of their nurses. Why? I personally believe it's because there would not be enough nurses drug-free to satisfy their staffing needs.

Years ago, I took care of a nurse who respiratory arrested at the nurses station after shooting up 300mg Demerol.

Nursing is not all Florence Nightengale. It's hard, stressful, heart wrenching work.

you definitely don't get paid what you are worth

I fight for everything else in the nursing profession, including my patients, and now I have to fight for my money. I came home physically ill and exhausted. I like my job and don't want to quit. The administrators favorite words are " I'll get back to you about it" "we're working on it" etc. I ended up writing anonymously to wage and hour as I am afraid of any recourse. Is there anything else we can do? This doesn't only happen to me but it seems to be happening the most to those of us who work weird or extra hours. Also, are we supposed to be paid for our lunch because we can't leave and frequently get called from our lunches for patient care.

Most nurses never thought that there would be reductions in workforce or atrition of positions, which would lead to working short staff, and sometimes unsafe conditions for delivering patient care.

What saddens me most about nursing in Britain today is that nursing seems to have lost the respect of the public in general, our medical colleaques and the government in particular. For example, everybody but everybody is getting extra pay for working over the millenium New Year holiday or else time off.

In the National Health Service all leave has been banned and we'll be lucky if we get our basic special duty payments.

No wonder there are recruitment problems.

I too love my work, I just hate my job sometimes. And, yes, we don't make nearly what we should for what we have to know. As a critical care nurse with 14+ yrs experience I make squat

I'm a relatively new nurse (3 years), and I'm having regrets about being in nursing. Why nursing? I can't give a easy reply. I work rotating shifts, so my sleep is off. When I am off, I'm too tired to actually do something (except those essential things like Laundry). And I'm constantly thinking of work: will I float today, will we work short, what will I muck up this time. Why nursing? I have no clue.

I remember when hospitals were run by Health Care people not Big Business where the bottom line is FAR more important than the health of the patient. This is THE single reason that I want to get out of a profession that I love. I cannot stand to see others hurt or hurting because our society, in the US, has decided to turn its back on what really matters. Your health.

It is too bad that our society views us still to this day as only assistants

I find that there is less and less peer support possibly due to budget restraints.

I also have a daughter who has decided NOT to be a nurse. Why? She has said to family and friends that nurses work too hard and they don't make a great deal of money.

The "healthcare community" (big busines "managed care") doesn't give a hoot about us

Most nurses are too competitive and do not stand up for their peers. We are a profession that eats our young and we need to change that but I do not know how that will ever be accomplished.

our D.O.N. stated "if your not happy, quit, nurses are a dime a dozen."

$15 per day is all we get for being "on call" for 12 hours (for some nurses this will not cover the expense of an "on call" babysitter)

I've always felt that the conditions would have to be truly egregious in order for me to strike, but I think that the time might just be approachin'...

The most unsettling thing I have seen at a hospital that I was formerly employed at is that chief exec officers for nursing are NON nurses. This is grave.

It is time for our hospital based colleagues to be articulate--not witchy or whiny--about conditions that lead them to strike so that we can all have a voice for nursing.

AGAIN, NONE OF THE ABOVE WAS WRITTEN BY ME. I HAVE SIMPLY POSTED THESE QUOTES HERE TO SUPPORT MY OPINIONS...

mirn · Sep 29, 1999

Yes, we are all entitled to opinions...me too. I feel differently than you about some issues. Others mentioned, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

What, then, is the perfect career? I could go to work in a local auto plant and in exchange for 100,000 or so a year, I (with no education in this area)could work on an assembly line for 8 to 16 hours a day due to mandatory overtime, be forced to work 2 of every 3 weekends, get NO vacation(sure I'd earn the time but they don't get to take it), work in a windowless factory in the worst part of town, and die of exhaustion or an MI before I can spend my massive retirement fund that comes complete with lifetime health care and insurances, not to mention union-negotiated cost of living allowances. No exposure to HIV or diseases of the air- or blood/fluid-borne variety. Just asbestosis or chemical or fume poisoning. That's nothing to worry about.

Sure it infuriates me that these barely-educated(in some instances) earn way more than we do, but every career has some drawbacks. Someone mentioned truck driving. To me, not ideal either, for the fact that it is not great for the family life if this is important to you, and I would not enjoy it.

I just wish we could all feel free to share our comments and ideas without being insulted by thoughtless, patronizing comments that are generalizing and unneccessary.

By the way, while the Detroit and Bay City hospitals are experiencing layoffs, the NURSING staff has remained intact at both. In fact Detroit Medical Center plans to have increased their nursing staff by 400 new nurses by January.

The

question was, Would you recommend nursing as a career, not Would you say nursing is the best damn career in the world.

Nursing Slug · Sep 29, 1999

Outstanding NurseDude! By the way, starting ASN RN's make $14.41 per hour at the local (large size) hospital. On the other hand, "agency" CNA's earn between 11 and 17 bucks per hour ! Go figure! This is Indiana that I'm talking about. Just think.... In 5 months, I will graduate ASN (LPN to RN) and will only lose 59 cents per hour in comparison to my LPN pay~~~> Gee... I always assumed that advancing a degree would earn me more money! Guess not in this career!

nursedude · Oct 1, 1999

So Nursing Slug,(read on MIRN and all others)

You mean to tell me that you will loose money when you go from being a LPN to a RN?

I guess this is the point of what I have been trying to get accross...

Lets say that for instance you were offered a promotion at work... The promotion involved using more critical thinking skills, the promotion meant that you were not only responsible for your own actions but also for the actions of those under you as well. Peoples lives depended on you, your boss depended on you as well- you were promoted to a higher level... Alas, a "professional".

Now lets look at you Nursing Slug... You basically promoted yourself when you became a RN. Perhaps you will now be in charge of LPN's and CNA's as a Registered Nurse. You have assumed quite a large responsibility, peoples lives may count on YOU.

****But you mean to tell me they are going to pay you less????*** You are going to loose money for assuming more respnsibility? You are going to assume Liability for peoples lives and they are going to pay you less??? You will be accountable for the actions of those below you on your shift??? You are going to risk loosing your license, you are going to risk civil and criminal charges if found guilty in a medical malpractice/neglect charge??? All for what??? For less than a LPN makes?

My point is simply this... If assuming more responsibility as a RN, for advancing yourself to the level in medicine(and in life) where peoples lives count on your skills and critical decision making abilities commands so low a wage (ie: less than you made as a LPN), what does this position command in the way of respect????

Sure, I am with you all the way. Nursing demands a lot of respect- all nurses, but my point is that in todays society, careers that demand respect get paid as well. However, I am somewhat confused as to why 99% of the nurses who opposed my original statement feel that I am off my rocker for saying that Nurses deserve more money and respect?

WE ALL MAKE MONEY IN EXCHANGE FOR WORKING...otherwise its called volunteering- I don't know of any careers(or professions) made up entirely of volunteers.

(working for someone without pay was abolished by President Lincoln and I am not aware of any professinals who volunteer on a full time basis)

Nursing Slug, good luck.

And also MIRN, yes, the question was :Would you recommend nursing as a career?

My answer: No, it is pathetic and I would not recomend it to anyone. ( Not once did I say that nurses were pathetic.)

MIRN, I honestly appreciate your honesty and the amount of dedication that you have for your chosen profession. And your rebuttals to my statements are noteworthy. No doubt exists in my mind that you are a very conscientious and good nurse. My point is that professionals like yourself deserve more than what you are getting. I feel this way because I have had jobs outside of nursing and have seen that there is quite an inequity in not only pay but treatment and respect as a professional as well.

"Sure it infuriates me that these barely-educated(in some instances) earn way more than we do, but every career has some drawbacks."

I don't know what the reason for this inequity is.

Nor do I see any diference in "the drawbacks"

Your words(mostly) MIRN...

ie:

"working weekends/holidays" vs "work 2 of every 3 weekends" (I know a Full time nurse in the ER where I work PRN that has not had a weekend off since the first week of July)

"asbestosis or chemical or fume poisoning" vs "exposure to HIV or diseases of the air- or blood/fluid-borne variety" (I had a needle stick-inflicted accidentally by another RN almost a year ago- so far my HIV/RPR tests have been negative- my wife wants another baby, but... you never know)

"massive retirement fund that comes complete with lifetime health care and insurances" vs no retirement plan, and lame HMO then ends when you retire/quit (If you have a 401K at a hospital consider yourself lucky)

"work in a windowless factory " vs working in a hospital?

"die of exhaustion or an MI" vs dying of exhaustion or an MI or see above "exposure to HIV diseases etc"

"truck driving"..."is not great for the family life"... vs working weekends and holidays- this is great for family life too

"8 to 16 hours a day due to mandatory overtime" vs being responsible for someones life and having to work mandatory overtime. Have you ever pulled the 11:00pm to 3:00pm shift due to call offs? They call going home abondonment.

"100,000 or so a year" vs ??? RN's make $14.41 per hour

nursedude · Oct 1, 1999

By the way...

Go back to Brian's posting in this forum: "Yes, there are so many options"

There are quite a number of responses from nurses there, who have a wide range of experience. There are approximately 28 responses to Brian's original post.

Those who would recomend: 10

Those who would not: 17

(One or two people could have gone either way or didn't say.)

Maybe I am not the only one who would not recomend nursing as a career.

twill · Oct 2, 1999

hello,

I'm new to the list...RN, BSN since 1994, Houston, OR nursing, wife and mother of two. I just couldn't resist putting in my two cents:

I have to say I wouldn't recommend nursing as a career to anyone who wants to support a family. It's still true that most nurses are female and secondary income earners for families.... "caretakers" if you will, already. I'm thrilled to see more males entering the profession and am hopeful that their voices will command the respect that their female co-workers can't. (If you disagree simply because you think I'm being sexist you aren't looking at the world as it is in this moment in time) Whether we like it or not, nurses aren't seen by society as "real" breadwinners, therefore they are paid substantially less and it's socially acceptable. Could it be that most females get into the profession because it is a role (caretaker) they are all-too-accustomed to at home and in life, which they do for free! No wonder they don't get paid more, they really don't expect it or they would demand it.

I'm just at the point in my career where I've realized the level of responsibility without any level of authority has eroded this profession to a 10 year career at best. Nurses are leaving the profession in droves. It's not worth the sleepless nights and worry. It's too bad. I've met a lot of great nurses whose value will never be realized by the public until it's too late. But I'm still in here, loving my patients one at a time, and occasionally making a difference.

twill

Nursing Slug · Oct 2, 1999

Twill:

Does it take a 3-5 year degree to be a "caretaker" (do it at home for free)? Let's not forget how drilling college was/is or the COST! Like I said before...... perhaps we should give them what they pay for.... a order of small fried, a reg hamburger and a generic pop! Most nurses are HIGHLY SKILLED, DEDICATED, LOYAL PROFESSIONALS, yet every day, I see signs on the telephone posts that read "College student labor.... $11.00 per hour"~~~~~ Pretty scary when 3 year degreed RN's makes only a bit over 3 bucks per hour more! And.... we are comparing cutting yards to saving lives! WOW!

suellen e. · Oct 3, 1999

Dear All, I still say that I would recommend nursing as a career. After 25 years of being a RN I feel that I have enormous responsibility and also have authority over what happens along with the physicians. In California, it has been my experience that nurses and doctors work together in partnership to give the best care to the patients that we can. We listen to each other and solve problems respectful of each other and of the patients. This may sound idealistic, but this is the way it is and should be. We nurses have the power to make it be this way. We nurses have to think of ourselves as worth our salt and then of course we better be worth it. Education helps a lot. I'm in graduate school, will be a FNP in May next year. In my current job in a family practice, I started out earning $15.50 an hour. I persisted (patiently) in asking for more and finally got $17, and now $23 an hour. But the main reason I have stayed with the job 4 years now isn't so much because of the money but because I like the job and I like the team of doctors and other nurses and staff who I work with. Nursing remains a fascinating career and I strongly recommend it.

MollyJ · Oct 3, 1999

This is a wrenching thread!!! I have gone on record in this discussion elsewhere to say that in spite of the hardships of nursing, that I would do it again (after 20 years of practice) and I feel that way, but I can agree that I would never have survived 20 years of bed-side hospital nursing. I believe the key to survivability is the diversity. At the same time, I'm like nursedude; I am a former case manager for a government insurance (we sub-contracted). Bowing to all the CM's that work for insurance and feel it a profound way to make a difference, I didn't like some of the things I was asked to do (like tell people that they could only have 15 feeding bags per month because that's how we always did it.) In myself I detect more and more stress, no matter where I work, about whether I am doing "safe practice" since we know society tolerates so little in the way of adverse outcome.

You know, I listen to so many people grumble about the rates of pay and benefits in the hospital and elsewhere, and I haven't been making those types of rates of pay for years, because I opted out of the hospital for family reasons and new interests. But I have lived happier and that is worth quite a lot, too. I have not known shift work for close to 4 years now. I don't miss the fatigue and the social isolation and I've learned to live without the money.

Still, what happens to hospital nurses should be a concern for all of us. If I suddenly had to be come "the main wage earner" in my family, I would look to the large bureaucratic hospital environment as a potential employer. However, my MSN would mean that I would have the option to start at the level of bedside care, but it would not be my only choice.

To Nurse Dude: You have a legitimate message, but you cloak it in so much hostility that it is hard to hear your message. Tune it down and refine your message, so that focus can rest on your message not your insults.

I believe we, in the health industry, are working for a dying, creaking institution. The health insurance and provider shenanigans are people trying to sustain access to the levels of care we are used to at affordable levels AND then there are the insurance groups, some docs, some health care agencies that are trying to sustain their level of earning. They are trying to ride fast during the last breaths of a dying beast. The demands of the consumer (top care, top technology, perfection, affordability etc) and the involved parties (a good wage and benefit that at least reimburses the cost and stress of education for docs and nurses and other hc professionals alike, a humane work environment; a profitable work environment that meets the needs of comminities for hospitals and other agencies) have exhausted the beast.

I work for a school and I listened to a mid-level administrator tell staff that he did not think that employers would even be providing health insurance to employees in 10 years because it is such a costly benefit and he didn't see how it could keep going. If you talk to HR people, you will hear some variation on the theme. Essentially, health care is pricing itself out of the market. Take heart nurses; people will always need some types of health care. But I believe, in short order (5-10 years) we will see Americans going on that health care appetite restricted diet, because I think the noises I hear here are the sounds of an industry collapsing with its' own weight.

Look at your education? How are you positioned to go into the future??? More might not necessarily be better, but you might have more choices.

benham · Oct 3, 1999

Let me start off by saying that NURSING IS NOT PATHETIC!!!!!!! The only thing that makes it pathetic is nurses that ***** because they don't make enough money and they have to get up off of their lazy cans and answer a few call lights and give a few medications. That is what nursing is about and if you don't like what you are doing, quit and become a garbage collector!! As far as the money goes, be grateful that you are making your measly $25/hr. I am making less than $10.00/hr in TX. I started out working in Central Supply and Central Sterile 11 yrs. ago making minimum wage, so don't ***** .

In answer to your question, I would not recommend nursing as a career to anyone who is not pasionate about and dedicated to working VERY hard and getting very little thanks for your work. But, if you like to work and can hold out for that one very special thank you from a very special patient it makes it all worthwhile

jbresolin · Oct 7, 1999

The pay in nursing is good, but if a person worked all the time they might burn out because of the pace. To do a good job requires emotional and physical energy. I think that if a person was mainly interested in making a lot of money fast, that they'd be better off getting an MBA.

Robin MC · Oct 10, 1999

As a 12 year RN I would have to say I would certainly NOT recommend nursing as a career. I have given up far too many weekends and holidays. I have been on the receiving end of too many doctors inappropriate verbal abuses. I have been forced to deal with too many abusive patients. The pay has never been "bad" but it did get under my skin that union grocery checkers make more money than I did. With the current situation in healthcare I think you would be nuts to get involved in it the way it is now. Recently co-workers of mine lost a patient (a mother, 45 minutes after giving birth). These nurses were given NO support and in fact were sent back to their unit to work with other labor patients, immediately after this tragedy!! Why?? Because the unit was busy and the nurses were needed, period. Thats how much management cares about the well being of their nurses. It all comes down to the mighty dollar, and try as I might, it is getting hard to be a great nurse around that fact. I am out of nursing now, I may never go back.