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.
My above post is not to say nursing is all sunshine and roses. I have more respect than ever for older nurses who have been doing this for years and years because whether I love it or not, bedside nursing can cause some serious wear and tear on the body (with patients getting larger and larger and units being short, it's just an injury waiting to happen).
Also, I don't know why anyone would want all the older nurses gone. Their experience is something NOTHING but time (or them) can teach you. The ones I've worked with or shadowed taught me so many little tricks on realizing when a case is going downhill just by a few signs; how to get that blind IV on the rolley-pollie veins; how to get a PICC line going without Cathflo; even how to avoid any vein issues from all the constant walking and standing. I appreciate them so much.
A huge THANK YOU to anyone in the "crusty old bat society." I say, DON'T leave the workforce until you absolutely must, some of us newbies love having you around and we need you
I keep noticing the posts about new grads and decent pay. I think we ALL should be able to get decent pay, even new grads. The nights/weekends/holidays thing? We should be reasonably compensated.
Examples from my current job include that the weekend and holiday differentials are the same, at $1.25/hour. $1.25 times 12 hours is $15 for the entire shift. Yes, you read that right. And then management wonders why they have trouble staffing the weekends and now mandate holidays! Well, dumb pieces of ****, I would be happy to work weekends for a $4-$5/hour diff, which would be a lot less money than having to bribe us with incentives, and I would be happy to work holidays for time and a half. I would be happy to let all the people with kids/families/whatever have Christmas off and make less money. I'm all for those bonuses and being able to save, and if the people with kids don't like money, that's fine with me. I have always worked places that are open 365 days a year. I happily worked my minimum wage job at the movie theater on Christmas for time and a half. I even signed up for DOUBLES because I enjoyed the extra money! I happily worked my $10/hour hotel job on Christmas for time and a half, and my gosh, it really impacted my check! It was GREAT working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!
However, I will absolutely complain and be obnoxious about working on Christmas, with a BASE wage of more than $20/hour, for an extra $15 for the whole shift. I'm sorry, but the way some hospitals pay their employees is just messed up. At $6/hour for time and a half, that comes out to $3 extra PER HOUR....
That sounds awful. We don't get any shift-diff at my job for weekends, because every 3rd is mandated, but we do get time and a half for all holidays recognized by the hospital.
Our weekends are always short, hospital-wide (and I work at a pretty large hospital), despite being mandated though. I personally think a shift-diff would help because most other hospitals around the city do offer one for working weekends.
Specializes in LTC, Wounds, Med/Surg, Tele, Triage.
"You'll never be out of work as a nurse!" ... I heard that when I graduated in 2003 with my LPN. Again in 2008 when graduating with my BSN! Knock on wood I haven't been unemployed but believe I thank my lucky stars when I walk into work considering I am content in my niche ... even though, as triage nurses are leaving (we had 3 retire on 2nd shift the end of 2014) they are not replacing them. Talk of MTA's being hired ??? We've hired MANY MTA's in our urgent care clinic and even ED in the last few years. Entering my 12th year of employment and I can say MTA's seem to be the new "cheaper" trend.
Volunteering?? I hope not!! A requirement for entry? My goodness. I had 2 kids and two jobs as a CNA prior to entering the nursing field. There would of been no way I could've fit all that in. Maybe if I was 18 and still living at home.
The shortage is based on patient acuity and assignments. The problem is 10 years ago you had 1 nurse taking care of 2 or 3 high acuity pts. These days hospitals are abusing the nurse and have doubled the pt load, thereby slashing the staffing need in half. We work like concentration camp survivors. No breaks no water allowed at med carts... rule after rule. Work harder give more!!!
I already volunteer my time by not getting a lunch break and all the other CE's that I have to do to keep my job.
The problem with greedy CEO's running hospitals... Gotta find the money to fund their 6 figure bonuses.
There would be a shortage if they staffed the hospitals appropriately.
We work like concentration camp survivors. No breaks no water allowed at med carts... rule after rule. Work harder give more!!!
Perhaps you didn't mean offense by this, but people in concentration camps did hard, physical labor for no compensation, were routinely denied meals (not just "I'm prioritizing work over my physical needs" like many nurses tend to do, but legitimately DENIED food), forced to live, sleep, breathe, and **** in a room with 20+ other people, were forcefully separated from their loved ones and homes, were physically beaten as their fatigue lessened their ability to work, and died gruesome deaths by inhumane means.
I'm not sure what you meant by that comment but I feel like it was a gross and offensive exaggeration.
. New teachers and accountants are pretty much in the same boat, and most of them had to have roommates the first few years. Now people expect to live with Mom and Dad (and Mom and Dad paying the bills) until they can afford that three bedroom house in the suburbs. So if the new job is in Kansas and Mom and Dad live in Milwaukee, that's a problem. But the problem is in expectations, not in nursing.
I couldn't disagree more. Professionals with 4-year degrees shouldn't have to live with roommates. We should be paid a living wage, at the least. 30 years ago, people could get a decent job straight out of high school. Now we have to live like slobs for years after our 4 year degree? At what point have we paid enough dues to be paid well?
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
CANNOT LIKE THIS ONE TOO MUCH!!!!! Great post.
Newish nurse here. This thread is… interesting. I agree with many points the OP made- if nursing wants to continue to be respected as a profession and to elevate in the level of respect it already receives, we need to do more about the image we portray. My thoughts:
The NCLEX should NOT allow so many tries. Like the Bar Exam, 3 and done, or at the very least, remediation- and more than just a 1 week refresher course. I know some states do this, but not enough. I think it's crazy that people can take the test 5, 6 times in some places without any required review courses. Not doing well doesn't mean the person would make a bad nurse at all; however, it does mean show that the person in not correctly utilizing the nursing process when thinking about scenarios concerning basic safety of the patient. I think if we had a national standard in place, like many other licensing exams, it would be easier to have more compact states, and help keep us from the current glut†of nursing entrants of which the OP speaks.
Nursing has too many acronyms, and they confuse people. I see it with patients all the time- Diploma/BSN/MSN/ADN/ASN/DNP (I realize these ones are necessary); NP/APRN/ARNP/CNP/CNS; LVN vs LPN/PN; CNA/STNA/NAs/PCA/UAPs (how it was referenced in my Iggy Textbook). We need some nationally standardized uniform terms.
No one should have to be a CNA prior to being eligible for nursing school. That makes so many assumptions about one's life and could possibly prevent them from their life's true calling (Nursing IS a calling in my opinion), because of factors outside of their control. Med students and PAs don't have any similar requirement and neither should we, in my humble opinion. I did and still do volunteer a ton, but I'm not sure I'd make it a requirement either, as life circumstances have a huge effect on that as well. I do believe there needs to be more stringent requirements to stop the huge influx into the profession, I just don't know what those requirements should be. I apologize for that, because I typically cringe at the shooting down of possible solutions without having alternatives of my own.
Nursing schools shouldn't be allowed to keep taking people's money on the premise of some nursing shortage. I live in an area very saturated with nursing programs, and it simply isn't true. People go to school, expecting to get jobs right away, because of what schools have sold them, and they end up unemployed for months or longer (I've seen it on AN often). Many students in my city got screwed when they went to a school attached to a popular hospital, with the promise that if they did well, they'd all have a job waiting for them at the end. Only 3 students got hired (and WAY more than that did well). I feel the same way about NP schools and preceptors. Schools shouldn't be allowed to keep letting all these students into their NP programs, knowing that they can't really accommodate them. The whole preceptor process needs to be revamped.
I am very blessed, as a newer nurse, to be working the day shift at a premier hospital in the city (same city I went to school in). I did do nights for like a month first. I HAPPILY work every 3rd weekend, and often, if I see a weekend is down 2 nurses, I'll come in for a few hours or sometimes a whole shift and help my fellow nurses out. I don't mind our holiday schedule either. I'm often up to my elbows in poop (C. Diff anyone?), and I don't mind it, because I got that experience in clinical too, and I knew how nursing would be. Just yesterday a patient yanked their THIRD IV of the week out and got blood everywhere, and their PEGtube sprayed me with FiberSource at the same time. Good times. . I haven't experienced any bullying from anyone. I call physicians, social workers, lab, pharmacists and tele all day long, and I guess I'm fortunate because I've gotten nothing but respect.
Like another poster, I honestly only know of one nurse in my cohort who had unrealistic expectations as a new grad- what… not-so-bright person honestly goes into an industry that's active 24/7, 365 and DOESN'T expect to work weekends or nights? Only one person in class was like this. This person was at the top of the class but never wanted to get "dirty" with patients. They wouldn't dream of giving a bed-bath (always said that's the PCA's job") let alone dealing with incontinence of bowel and bladder. Well, said person's father is an influential surgeon in the city, so they had a job before even passing the NCLEX, heck before even passing the exit HESI. :-/ But I can assure you, they were in the minority in my class. Most went into this wanting to work and with a compassion for people.
Very well said. The shortage is experienced nurses of 10 plus years in specialty areas not general new grad. Also new grads seem to be less prepared now and want long orientation periods or residency programs.
I also find wages and benefits plummeted not just in nursing but most professions. Cost of living continues to rise though.
As one of the "older" nurses I can tell you that yes, there is an expected shortage as those of us in the baby boomer age group retire. However, with the cost of retirement and less benefits you can expect that most of us will be working longer, so you may not be getting the jobs you expect. Also, with technology improving, there are more monitoring equipment available so that you can observe your elderly parents on a daily basis, technology that monitors their medications etc. Nursing Homes will be a thing of the past, there will still be a need for them but not as there has been, and the boomers do not want to be housed this way. The stupid 401-K, 453-B, so called benefits are not earning anything due to the economy, so therefore another reason for us to have to work longer, older. WE are not going anywhere anytime soon. We can learn to live within our means and not use our credit cards until they are exhausted, the raises are not there, not even annual ones. And when the company isn't screwing you the government will!!! Guess all of us need to let loose a little!! The ANA is not there for nurses, it is there for the government and they will deligate how nursing will be governed and expanded or eliminate various levels of nursing. Get ready for the challenges before us!!!
As an orderly who was paid $3-4 an hour the entire time I was in nursing school, I now consider that to be volunteer work Thankfully, the hospital had tuition assistance so at least most of my schooling was paid for.
I want to chime in on the point that volunteering should be considered as a entry qualification to nursing programs. I don't disagree there. Something I see everyday and have seen just reading through this thread is nurses who lack compassion because they never learned it or have forgotten how to feel it. Compassion is integral to nursing. Without it, you're basically "tending" to someone. Volunteering either as a prerequisite or requirement during the program might serve to stimulate some compassion. Or maybe we all need to step back and make a point to actively cultivate compassion rather than run the drills and get down to business. The patients are people and their feelings matter regardless of whether we like them or agree with their life choices.
Very well said. The shortage is experienced nurses of 10 plus years in specialty areas not general new grad. Also new grads seem to be less prepared now and want long orientation periods or residency programs.
I also find wages and benefits plummeted not just in nursing but most professions. Cost of living continues to rise though.
I wonder what constitutes as "long"? Mine was supposed to be 12 weeks (I think). I'm not sure because I got pulled out of orientation early due to staff shortages. Haha. I didn't feel tossed to the wolves though. My colleagues were super helpful. I recall feeling overwhelmed because I had more than 5 patients, but I had all my charting done, meds passed and rapport built with patients and families by the end of my shift :)
And I am proud of that because many seasoned and new nurses at the hospital stay long after their shifts due to unfinished charting.
That sounds awful. We don't get any shift-diff at my job for weekends, because every 3rd is mandated, but we do get time and a half for all holidays recognized by the hospital.
. I haven't experienced any bullying from anyone. I call physicians, social workers, lab, pharmacists and tele all day long, and I guess I'm fortunate because I've gotten nothing but respect. 
Thankfully, the hospital had tuition assistance so at least most of my schooling was paid for.
Guest575949
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My above post is not to say nursing is all sunshine and roses. I have more respect than ever for older nurses who have been doing this for years and years because whether I love it or not, bedside nursing can cause some serious wear and tear on the body (with patients getting larger and larger and units being short, it's just an injury waiting to happen).
Also, I don't know why anyone would want all the older nurses gone. Their experience is something NOTHING but time (or them) can teach you. The ones I've worked with or shadowed taught me so many little tricks on realizing when a case is going downhill just by a few signs; how to get that blind IV on the rolley-pollie veins; how to get a PICC line going without Cathflo; even how to avoid any vein issues from all the constant walking and standing. I appreciate them so much.
A huge THANK YOU to anyone in the "crusty old bat society." I say, DON'T leave the workforce until you absolutely must, some of us newbies love having you around and we need you