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.
So... let me get this straight, some of you are choosing nursing not because you have the heart of a nurse and want to care for people, but because it seemed like the best choice out of the bad choices. Wow. I predict you will be unhappy nurses who will leave a path of unhappy patients.
I'm a fairly new nurse, graduated a little over a year ago.
A lot of you really sound bitter and discouraging. I work in a LTC. I never wanted to. I hated the thought. RNs in my mind didn't belong there. I was wrong. Nursing is changing. There are plenty of different types of jobs now for a nurse. Not just typical bedside nursing. Keep learning, make yourself valuable. Stop being so whiney.
I've only read about half the comments here, but holy crap, is it really that bad everywhere? Is there a regional aspect to this? I look at the job openings for CNAs around here in the twin cities (hoping to find a test date that works with my school schedule) and check the RN openings at the same time. I see tons of openings at area hospitals. I know a few nurses (a mix of RNs and LPNs) and haven't heard of any such surplus of nurses around here. I fully expect that I might have to commute to the other side of town for my first job, but hell if I'm moving anywhere.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
So... let me get this straight, some of you are choosing nursing not because you have the heart of a nurse and want to care for people, but because it seemed like the best choice out of the bad choices. Wow. I predict you will be unhappy nurses who will leave a path of unhappy patients.
Let me get this straight -- you're feeling superior to other nurses because you think that YOU have a "calling" and they don't? People get into nursing for all sorts of reasons, and as long as they are competent and do their jobs to the best of their ability, it is neither YOUR business nor mine. Get over yourself.
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
So... let me get this straight, some of you are choosing nursing not because you have the heart of a nurse and want to care for people, but because it seemed like the best choice out of the bad choices. Wow. I predict you will be unhappy nurses who will leave a path of unhappy patients.
I am not an altruistic person. I don't have the so-called 'heart of a nurse.' I am not the type of person who gets a thrill out of having others depend on me. Other peoples' reasons for entering nursing are none of our business.
I entered nursing for the flexibility in scheduling, steady income, career mobility, and opportunities for advancement. After a decade in nursing, I am neither an unhappy nurse, nor have I left an aftermath of unhappy patients.
No one ever questions the motives of engineers, businesspeople, executives, college professors, physicians, attorneys, or other professionals for entering their respective occupations. I feel that nurses should not be bothered, either.
Something else that would help in my opinion, is considering more than just a high GPA when admitting people into programs.
Yes, you need to be capable of doing well in school, but there is SO much more to the actual job than nursing school even touches upon.
The school I go to only accepts those with the highest GPA or TEAS test score. The don't care if you have letters of recommendation from 15 nurses and doctors you have worked with, or if you can USE the knowledge you have. They don't care if we've worked in healthcare before, either. It drives me nuts.
There are plenty of schools to choose from and not all are so selective! The public college is sometimes the most selective simply because they have so many more applicants than spots in the nursing school. Sometimes one must choose a more expensive private school if one's GPA is not high enough. Private non profit schools may give more hands on attention, smaller class sizes and individual attention but this comes with a high price tag and grads don't get paid more for having gone to a private school.
I will be graduating this May with my BSN at 42 years old. I appreciate the OP's opinion, however I want to be a nurse :) Someone mentioned that many new nurses or soon-to-be graduates state that they do not want bedside nursing, or expect to not have to relocate...well my situation is quite different. I have no doubt that I will be doing bedside nursing, and the majority of my peers want to relocate to larger towns after graduation. I would prefer to stay local. I am doing my Capstone at my small local hospital and I love it there, sure it pays less than the bigger city hospitals, but it is still my first choice. Would I drive further if needed? Of course. Both of my sister in laws are nurses, and from what I've learned on this site, I know that my future nursing career will hard work. I know that I will have to compete against the younger graduates for my first job (that's my biggest fear) and I know that I will have days when I will absolutely hate my job...but I will also have days when I will absolutely love it. So, thank you OP for your honesty and for your opinion...but I will take my chances with this career, because that is what I want to do :)
More people need to actually research the nursing profession before they embark on such a long journey then find out it's a profession that they hate. A lot of people have the perception they are going to pass out meds all day, have no drama or stress, and collect a hefty pay check every two weeks. Those people are in for a rude awakening. A very rude awakening.
It should be required to shadow a nurse in different specialties as part of the nursing school process. If that happens we would probably see the amount of new nursing enrollments drop significantly get when they a clear picture of what nursing is really about.
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. If I worked 12 hours on Christmas at a $6/hour job, that comes to $36 extra dollars a shift, vs. the $15 extra dollars a shift I make now. I literally made more incentive pay when I made $6/hour for working on Christmas than I make for working as a nurse. Does anyone think that's fair? Maybe all the complaints about nursing pay and incentives are rooted in the fact that minimum wage workers are given more incentives to come to work than some nurses are. Obviously, we are just cogs in the machine and nobody values us, but they could at least pretend that we're worth more than workers at a job that aren't even required to graduate high school!
Ha! I worked at a hospital that only gave an extra 85 cents more on the weekends. Screw that mess!
The nurses at my facility don't know how good they have it. $5 for nights, $5 for weekends, 2.5x for holidays (yup!), and a few dollars extra more per hour for working above percent.
I'm a fairly new nurse, graduated a little over a year ago.
A lot of you really sound bitter and discouraging. I work in a LTC. I never wanted to. I hated the thought. RNs in my mind didn't belong there. I was wrong. Nursing is changing. There are plenty of different types of jobs now for a nurse. Not just typical bedside nursing. Keep learning, make yourself valuable. Stop being so whiney.
Thank you. I thought I was the only one reading these that saw how ridiculous it was getting. I mean, others read these posts people, have respect for each other and stop making this a contest of who is better than who. What is the need to overcompensate for anyway? Play nice....
NoStarsinMyEyes; I do wonder what is going to happen to all those LTC facilities, and remember when we were being told that LTC was the next "boom in nursing?" We are the generation that has caused multiple social change in this country and will continue to do so. There will be a different type of "care" for us, we do not lie down quietly. We are the ones who are attempting to lead the next generation of nurses although, they are slightly resistant. The challenges will remain for us to conquer, unfortunately aging just seems to happen, but we will perservere!!! We are tough old birds!!
TexMex22
161 Posts
So... let me get this straight, some of you are choosing nursing not because you have the heart of a nurse and want to care for people, but because it seemed like the best choice out of the bad choices. Wow. I predict you will be unhappy nurses who will leave a path of unhappy patients.