None of you will like what I have to say. But let me kick the hard truth to you. Honestly about 50% of people I talk to are in nursing school or are taking pre-reqs for nursing school. This is a major red flag for several reasons. If you have not noticed, nursing wages/benefits have been on the down trend.
Pension?? goodbye.
Crud 401k 403b plans hello. Raise? LOL "sorry hospital is working out financial issues, maybe next year".
Nevermind if you work for a community/SNF agency. Yet insurance companies, medicare derived/gov agencies, and anyone else from the top 1% will continue to blast the RN as "shortage" in order to drive drones of students into nursing schools pulling each others hair out on the way to land a seat. Proof of this is, let's see (ABSN ***** ADN, BSN, diploma, LPN/LVN bridge to RN programs, RN to BSN) Why do these different routes exist? To flood the RN market as fast as possible to drive the wage, need, and profession into the ground.
Let's look at our oh so loyal CNA's. If you can find one that isn't in nursing school to be a nurse, ask them how much they make?
Look at LPN's 20-30 years ago and look at them today??
Surely the ANA and other organizations treated them with respect. The RN is next, so make sure to support your local nursing agency so they can do nothing for you. So they can be paid off by organizations so powerful that no one can say no and "not have the power to stop a bill". So they can continue to cry nursing shortage when this is not true.
RNs today are treated like children and are required to demonstrate fundamental task and other skills in inservices which were designed for nothing else but cut throat. To place blame of UTI's and poor patient satisfaction on the nurse.
If you are an RN today, your only safety net is to become an APRN if you want to live comfortably but in several decades the APRN will be under attack just like the LPN had been an RNs currently are. "OH the aging population is going to need nurses" You really think so?
Nursing homes are shutting down and now elderly people live at home with "24 hour care takers" that get paid **** wages and do things only an RN should be doing. You don't think so? Wake up.
None of this is to say that I hate nursing. I love helping people who are mentally ill, suffering from dementia, sick, or on their death beds. It is when we do great things for them that my love for nursing shines. There aren't other people standing around to reward you for your great deeds.
When the family comes in the next day complaining about everything, they never had a chance to see how well their dying loved one was cared for. Your good deeds will never be rewarded, but in a safe place in your heart.
I am just here to open the eyes of people who are intelligent and looking for a new career. I think you may find better job security else where. Invest your time in classes and money else where. Nursing is honestly under great attack right now and the future is black.
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
There's no big wave of new grads trying to move me out of my position, that's for sure. Some students do work nights at PD for the times they can study while the patient sleeps. Usually, though, as soon as they graduate, they are off to bigger and better things!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Who are you to say they are not good nurses? I've worked with many for profit college nursing graduates who actually work harder because they get bullied in the work place because of where they got their education.
Please use the "Quote" button so we know who you're vociferously disagreeing with.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Good to vent. However, where is your statistics? You should be able to backup all those statements (allegations) with stats. For e.g., nurses salary going down, there is no shortage in nursing. I have friends who make six figure income. Nursing is still a great and noble profession. Do you know that 80% of the healthcare workforce is made up of nurses? Do you know what is predicted to happen in the workforce by 2020 if we continue down the same path? Please look at some stats to support your argument.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
@ Susie2310. Thank you for your post. I've been told that nurses need compassion and shouldn't seek it purely for money. I think a prerequisite for applying to nursing school should be volunteering! It was totally different from studying and taking prerequisites. I learned a lot of positive things which will help me in nursing school. however, you also meet a lot of bitter, old nurses who are not happy in the profession, but are doing it because they need to pay the bills. They're such a turn off and not an encouragement for everyone else.
Honestly, I chose nursing because it was in the middle of everything I like and provides a stable living. Yes, you need to do what you love, but also be practical at the same time.
Who are you, or who am I for that matter, to tell anyone that they shouldn't seek nursing "for the money."? It's non of my business what someone's motives were when they went into nursing. As far as volunteering being prerequisite -- I hope not. I had to work three jobs to get through school, and that didn't leave any time for volunteering. I don't think that's hurt my nursing career any, except it truly made me appreciate having only ONE job!
While I agree with your general point-of-view ... I believe these nurses DO impact our profession greatly. They are draining our resources and bringing down the reputation of the profession. Because they can't command a top salary and there are so many of them, administrators think of nurses as "cheap labor" and think that they can use them to replace the better educated and more experienced nurses. Why improve working conditions when there is all this cheap nursing labor around?
The create turn-over -- one of our biggest enemies. Turn-over sucks the life out of our experienced preceptors and unit-level leaders.
They lower the level of practice and promote a culture that is unprofessional. That hurts in a lot of ways.
I don't think you can get away from turnover. In fact the BSN RN is quicker to leave than an ADN because they have more job opportunities to choose from and it is quicker and easier for them to go back to school and become an NP. Many new grad Rn's see the hospital as a paid residency for bigger and better things. Given the reality of floor nursing I don't blame them. I think they may just be brighter than a lot of us experienced nurses give them credit! There is no real future in bedside nursing, just high stress, understaffing and back breaking work!
I agree that the expectation to move to find employment is a little much. It may be a good option for those with no family, but a lot of nurses are 2nd career people. Most of us in that boat have kids, a significant other that works, maybe already own their home. It's not realistic to expect people to uproot their whole lives just to find a job.[/quote
But if you are living in a city with say a dozen colleges graduating RN's each semester I think it might be inevitable that some nurses will have to move to get a job. Even though you think oh a city has lots of hospitals, actually hospitals close down in the city due to poor reimbursement and there is more hospital, clinic etc growth in the suburbs and outlying areas. City hospitals in some places have already closed down, others are at risk of doing so over financial concerns. Moving may not be idealistic or optimal, but it might be necessary given this reality.
Haven't read the entire thread, but I have to say that I disagree with the statement "People really need to stop coming into nursing".
There are still many, many lucrative, rewarding opportunities for nurses, even new grads. You just have to know where to look and do your research.
Know what is going to be available to you when you graduate. Get a job as a CNA or a nurse tech while in school. Get your foot in the door somewhere and make connections.
If you haven't made those connections, and you are a new grad who lives in a tight job market, realize and accept that your first job likely will not be working on the super-cool critical care floor you did your clinicals on. No, your moxie and spunk will not be enough. Come to terms with this and investigate all the other lower acuity settings you will probably have to put time in to beef up your resume. Med-Surg. Nursing homes. Home care. Subacute. Assisted living. Corrections. Dialysis.
Set a goal, by all means. But realize that there will be steps you will have to take before reaching that goal. Simply graduating from an RN program and getting a license doesn't mean you're suddenly hot stuff in demand. You're at the very beginning of your career.
Just because the opportunities are different from what you envisioned doesn't mean there aren't opportunities.
A better title for this thread would be "People really need to stop coming into nursing with unrealistic expectations."
I find, along with the trend toward APRN, are those who enter nursing with the intention of never actually touching a patient. Weird way to approach nursing if you ask me, but that's what I'm noticing more and more.
Prospective students who ask about the fastest way to get to become a NP (not asking which program is better, which school is best, but what the FASTEST way is). Pre-nursing students who want to know if they really have to do any bedside nursing before becoming a CRNA. Sigh.
It's so silly. I am a new RN student now and my instructor told me that and it puzzled me. Why be in health care and not touch a human? And not just the human, but all the biological byproducts that come along with it haha. People need to wake up and smell the.....well, you know where I'm going with this.
@ Susie2310. Thank you for your post. I've been told that nurses need compassion and shouldn't seek it purely for money. I think a prerequisite for applying to nursing school should be volunteering! It was totally different from studying and taking prerequisites. I learned a lot of positive things which will help me in nursing school. however, you also meet a lot of bitter, old nurses who are not happy in the profession, but are doing it because they need to pay the bills. They're such a turn off and not an encouragement for everyone else.
How dare they not be an encouragement for everyone else!
I'm sure when you become a nurse you will set them straight and make them realize they've been doing it wrong.
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
'There is no real future in bedside nursing" ????
Not everyone is working their way to a better, future job. While it's true there is "understaffing and high stress and back-breaking work", in spite of it all, bedside nursing is all I ever really wanted to do. I'd rather be the grunt giving direct patient care than in charge of anything or anybody except myself and my patient. To continue being able to work is all the future I need.
I've been accepted into nursing school and it's a top school. It hasn't been easy because the competition is indeed fierce to get into nursing school. Literally everyone at community college calls themself a nursing major but so many just don't have the academic chops for it. Then there are for profit programs who take these students who graduate and aren't good nurses
There is a school that let's students in with an entrance kaplan score 15 points below the failing score of our school. It too is for profit, very expensive, and their passing average for the program is lower too.
Libby1987
3,726 Posts
I didn't go into nursimg because it wasn't sbkut the money, I did need to make a pragmatic decision, I just also like my work.