Nursing shortages, Baby boomers and the immigrant nurse Part 2
It has been a couple of weeks since we reviewed the ongoing poll about foreign trained nurses in the USA and the trend towards blaming immigrant nurses for taking the jobs which should or should not belong to American Nurses.
The opinion is almost equally divided between the main two options - please review poll thread for further information.
Now what we really should investigate is when we say 'foreign nurses' who are we really referring to? Are we referring to Green Card holder? Or are we referring to foreign born and trained RN's? Is there a difference I hear you contemplating? Well I could predict that this would alter the opinions because those who are finger pointing may well have Green Cards themselves, even though they have probably lived for most of their lives in the USA, or have parents who remain legal Aliens and not US citizens.
Nobody complains about legal Aliens who are not RN's in the same way yet the majority and I say majority loosely because it is my opinion that almost 100% of nurses in the US are either 'legal aliens' or are already 'US Citizens, the exception these days are some Canadians who are still on working visas.
I am pretty sure somebody will prove me wrong, but hey that is the fun of these blog's and hopefully initiates some good conversation in a safe environment.
It is also my belief that the ones who criticize have no to little complaints against British, Canadian, Australian, and any other English as a first language speaking RN? The main complaints seem to be against Filipinos, Indian, and any RN who has an accent. Ok now I will bow my head and wait!
So I leave you with a thought If you are a Green Card Holder who trains in the US to be a RN, are you taking the jobs from the American Nurses or is this acceptable????
Obviously this debate is very heated and somewhere along the way there is the potential to offend people. I think the most important issues we need to address are
* Global workforce planning - that is strategic, logical and aims to employ nursing staff of a high calibre.
* State Nursing Boards, Hospitals and the US government need to sit down and actively draw up a plan that would allow sufficient employment for US born nurses, whilst drawing up a sensible agenda for the STRUCTURED recruitment of overseas nurses to the US
* Also encouraging employers to take on new graduates of nursing
* Setting up state- preceptorship for newly qualified grads in areas such as ITU, Cardiac, ER, L&D, Correctional Nursing etc.
Well thats what I would do if I was an American Recruiter right now. But I am just a British nurse lol
The nursing profession is in crisis worldwide. The problems America is having now with recruitment was a situation that happened in England no so long ago. A few years back there was mass recruitment of Phillipino nurses, again there was some staunch "opposition" from British Nurses. The minute this mass recruitment began to take effect then punitive arguments aboiut standards of care etc due poor language skills etc banded about. Also questions about the quality of the training that phillipino nurses had acquired had been called into question. Again this is because philippino nurses use the American system of nursing, hence many nurses who came from the phillipnes to the UK found themselves having to adapt which of course may have made them appear incompetent at times when in fact the opposite was true.
I just hired an RN from Ehtiopia a couple of weeks ago. he speaks English clearly but slowly as he chooses his words. He has been in the U.S. less than a year and taken the boards and passed with the least amount of questions possible. He worked in all depts in a hospital and then has been teaching nursing at a University for the past 8 years. Very intelligent. Hisx biggest concern was a differencee4 in technology... and we re seeing that. They measure insulin differently than we do and several other things have come to light. we have decided that it will take him longer to orientate than most nurses and are willingly going to give him that as I find he will be a great asset.
Hi Noc that is commendable, but I would like to add did you hire this Ethopian RN, because of the possibility of paying him slightly less? Or did this nurse geuninely have good english skills in the first place? I say this because - there are some unscruplous American Hospitals that will hire RNs on the cheap - with a view to paying them less - however under the guise of "his or her English is not quite up to scratch therefore we will need to give him or her an orientation programme" - What happens when these so-called orientation programmes end? What type of orientation programme does your organisation run? In general how are NON-US newly qualified nurses orientated to hospitals/nursing homes etc? Anyone got any experiences.
First of all, I would like to say that I operate a SNF and not a hospital. Any staff I hire goes according to our pay scale which is based on years of experience, NO exceptions. Orientation to the different floors in our building are based on how fast each individual can learn where things are and how everything goes. One person might be ready to go on their own in a week or two and I have had people take one - two months.
I DO NOT base any owrk or orientation on whether someone is "NON-US" or not. If someone has a legal license to practice and made it through an interview, then I hire them. Period.
Noc I am sorry if I offended you. It was not my intention. I was just merely offering the opinion that some agencies in the US may not be as honest and legitimate as yourself. I am trying to throw a different angle on the recruitment of overseas nurses. I myself want to come to the US one day as a nurse, I am prepared to work dam hard to get to the level of Advanced Nurse Practitioner. Hence doing the groundwork now. So when the time comes I am ready for the challenge.
As a white, U.S. citizen, I do not believe our current employment problem has anything to do with the "foreign nurses". I will never forget how amazing my Filipina Preceptor was while in my RN program. I still keep in touch with her. I admired her intelligence, genuine caring for her patients, excellent time management and skills. I will always be grateful to her for her excellent teaching, patience and direction.
I think when it comes to recruitment we have to ask ourselves many questions.
1) Why are some areas in US nursing more difficult to recruit than others?
2) Why are some American nurses boycotting areas such as California - Berkely, Bev Hills etc?
3) Why are some areas in US nursing more easier to recruit to than others?
I think once we address these questions then we began to break down the problems and issues surrounding the recruitment of NON-US nurses to the States.
the federal department of labor clearly states that; united states citizens take precedance and a non-citizen cannot be employed if a united states citizen is available for the job. but this is not the case! rn's that are united states citizens are not given precedance, united states citizen new grad rn's are not being given precedance either. here is a link that has a power point from the california institute of nursing and health care, that states on page 7 that 16% of the rn's in california are foreign nurses. whether they are on visa's or have green cards (e3's, etc. and/or have permanent residency - green card), these nurses should not be employed when a rn who is a us citizen needs a job! furthermore, the foreign nurses are getting employed without verifiable job references and proof of positive employment histories. the foreign nurses are gaining experience while employed here, which further disables us citizen new grad rn's from getting hired. us citizen nurses job history backgrounds are scrutinized and a foreign rn who doesn't even have verifiable job references etc. can get the job instead. in california 16% = 64,000 foreign rn's (we have a total of approximately 400,000 rn's). i would say that number is greatly affecting us rn's from getting jobs!! this is just in california.. another point is that the cinhc estimated that in 2009, 5,768 new grad rn's would get hired for jobs and 3,812 new grad rn's would not get a job (page 23 of the power point). yet, the cinhc wants to continue to flood the market in cali. with new grad rn's that will not get jobs. the reason for this is that they want to receive the annual $60,000,000 for the states budget for nursing education - because this pays for their nursing instructor salaries. here is the link - http://www.cinhc.org/wordpress/wp-co...ionsed0809.pdf
Nurse now you raise some good points - however i would like to make it clear that before a non us nurse comes to america they have to go for vigrous checks and immigration and that is even before they have set foot on a plane. I would like to know what type of foreign nurses you have worked with have not been very good. I know you are a big supporter of foreign nurses lol
I have read the report. However i would like to make it clear that nurses trained outside the US face vigrous checks before going to the US. I would like to the calibre of nurses who have been deemed as below par because they have trained abroad
BILLIE39
112 Posts
Obviously this debate is very heated and somewhere along the way there is the potential to offend people. I think the most important issues we need to address are
* Global workforce planning - that is strategic, logical and aims to employ nursing staff of a high calibre.
* State Nursing Boards, Hospitals and the US government need to sit down and actively draw up a plan that would allow sufficient employment for US born nurses, whilst drawing up a sensible agenda for the STRUCTURED recruitment of overseas nurses to the US
* Also encouraging employers to take on new graduates of nursing
* Setting up state- preceptorship for newly qualified grads in areas such as ITU, Cardiac, ER, L&D, Correctional Nursing etc.
Well thats what I would do if I was an American Recruiter right now. But I am just a British nurse lol