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.
Well - it seems scandal and corruption are alive and well. Have you read the thread about Magnet?
The threads about what they are doing to experienced nurses? How they are looking for reasons to fire them, just to hire cheaper new nurses for tax breaks? The lateral violence and the bullying that is currently going on. And its never publicized. How the nurse Managers send the person who is being bullied to counselling, and leave the bully on the floor just because they are productive. I mean - it just goes on and on and on. I just don't think it truly lives up to being the "most trusted profession". Id like to think that.
It's not up to schools to make sure that supply doesn't outweigh demand...a school's job is to provide an education.
I definitely wish that standards for entry were higher...but as long as a school had enough people passing the NCLEX, I think they're going to stay put.
I agree that it's frustrating to graduate and not be able to find a job...but nursing schools can't be expected to anticipate the job market and then admit students accordingly. And by that standard, universities would have to eliminate all these liberal arts programs all together!
Actually as native Floridian, there are plenty of areas that are indeed Southern. Leave behind Miami, Ft.Lauderdale, Central Orlando, etc. the smaller towns are quite Southern in nature.
However I currently live and work just below the Mason Dixon. The conditions for nursing in FL are terrible and the pay is pathetic.
The lower east coast of the state and Miami does attract and create a special strangeness that kept Dave Barry writing for decades.
So I take it I should just keep ignoring the "Florida Nurses" recruitment emails I get at least twice a week. I've never been there, but I figured the state must be desperate for nurses to keep sending these emails.
@Rubyvee. I usually agree with you and have a great deal of respect for you but I think you are wrong here. I'm responding to the majority of people here that seem to resent nursing students and it bugs me. Yes, nursing is physical work. But let me get one thing straight that a lot of nurses seem to forget, it is not the only profession were one does hard physical labor. You guys are not the only ones in the country that work hard.
Talk to me when you've worked anywhere from 100-120 hours in a week. Every bit of it being hard, manual labor. Unloading delivery trucks full of weight equipment and free weights. Then you unload them off a truck and put it away in pallet racking. Or loading it into people's cars. Or basketball equipment. Or tearing down grid and rebuilding and setting up whole new depts. I have done tons of physical labor in my lifetime. I'm 39 years old and I have a much better work ethic than 75% of nurses working now. Oh and in those 100 hours weeks, I didn't get paid overtime. Not a dime. I've lifted heavy equipment up 17 foot ladders. I've worked much harder than most people can even imagine on here. So sitting here and watching people time over time say I don't know what I am getting into as a nursing student and that I am ruining the profession for those already in it, bothers me.
Not one person on here knows my background, my work ethic, or my personal life, and how I feel about becoming a nurse. I see many people on here who like to lecture and tell people oh how tough it is and how nursing students are so entitled. I'm sure some are. But not all and I call horse poop on this whole thread.
I'm not ruining this profession for anyone simply because I personally decided to go back to school and get my degree. I usually bite my tongue and don't respond to these threads, but I happen to find it offensive. And yes, I do see a lot of bitter people. Not just on this website but in my clinical rotations as well. Just as there are some bad nursing students, there are some bad and bitter nurses as well who honestly in my opinion have no business in the profession. I know exactly what I am getting myself into and I promise in my late teens and early to mid twenties I worked way harder than most of you have.
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
About the grocery bagging....where I live they DO hire older women to scan +/or bag groceries. One woman in her mid-70's has TWO jobs, one at a grocery store and one at a drugstore cash-register. So, it really might be an option at some point, sadly.
I don't think a ratio of 32:1 is at all reasonable or do-able, it is any number of incidents just waiting to happen. No ward clerk.....aside from routine and prn meds and treatments and redundant paperwork, there is the phone and all that business that must be conducted on the phone, faxing back and forth with the labs about INH's, getting supplies for the aides and O2 tanks for the residents, admissions, re-admissions, sending people out to the ER or mortuary and all that paperwork. One person should not be expected to juggle all those responsibilities. You can not be dumped on to such a degree because that is 'just the way things are now". It is completely unethical of an LTC to put one nurse totally in charge of EVERYTHING. And the aides have to work in their own little hell, also.
About the grocery bagging....where I live they DO hire older women to scan +/or bag groceries. One woman in her mid-70's has TWO jobs, one at a grocery store and one at a drugstore cash-register. So, it really might be an option at some point, sadly.
I don't think a ratio of 32:1 is at all reasonable or do-able, it is any number of incidents just waiting to happen. No ward clerk.....aside from routine and prn meds and treatments and redundant paperwork, there is the phone and all that business that must be conducted on the phone, faxing back and forth with the labs about INH's, getting supplies for the aides and O2 tanks for the residents, admissions, re-admissions, sending people out to the ER or mortuary and all that paperwork. One person should not be expected to juggle all those responsibilities. You can not be dumped on to such a degree because that is 'just the way things are now". It is completely unethical of an LTC to put one nurse totally in charge of EVERYTHING. And the aides have to work in their own little hell, also.
Yeah, 32:1 is pretty insane. It's 24:1 for me, and it's doable, barely. If one or God forbid two things go south in a shift, I'm screwed. Impossible to catch up when things don't run smoothly.
ps good to know that grocery bagging is an option. I might be reduced to working at WalMart, or maybe working in a convenience store. If I am really lucky I might get in at McDonald's. Those are the only options around here for older workers.
I will stay in my little old hospital psych unit with my 10 max patients with hardly any medical issues. Yes, we have our emergencies, like when a patient acts out and needs security called and restraints which is a paperwork nightmare, or a rapid response due to chest pain and SOB Q 6 months or so, but we get bathroom breaks whenever we need them and we are made to take our meal breaks.
After all I've heard about the lack of ability to do these things, who would want to go to an environment like that?
@Rubyvee. I usually agree with you and have a great deal of respect for you but I think you are wrong here. I'm responding to the majority of people here that seem to resent nursing students and it bugs me. Yes, nursing is physical work. But let me get one thing straight that a lot of nurses seem to forget, it is not the only profession were one does hard physical labor. You guys are not the only ones in the country that work hard.
Talk to me when you've worked anywhere from 100-120 hours in a week. Every bit of it being hard, manual labor. Unloading delivery trucks full of weight equipment and free weights. Then you unload them off a truck and put it away in pallet racking. Or loading it into people's cars. Or basketball equipment. Or tearing down grid and rebuilding and setting up whole new depts. I have done tons of physical labor in my lifetime. I'm 39 years old and I have a much better work ethic than 75% of nurses working now. Oh and in those 100 hours weeks, I didn't get paid overtime. Not a dime. I've lifted heavy equipment up 17 foot ladders. I've worked much harder than most people can even imagine on here. So sitting here and watching people time over time say I don't know what I am getting into as a nursing student and that I am ruining the profession for those already in it, bothers me.
Not one person on here knows my background, my work ethic, or my personal life, and how I feel about becoming a nurse. I see many people on here who like to lecture and tell people oh how tough it is and how nursing students are so entitled. I'm sure some are. But not all and I call horse poop on this whole thread.
I'm not ruining this profession for anyone simply because I personally decided to go back to school and get my degree. I usually bite my tongue and don't respond to these threads, but I happen to find it offensive. And yes, I do see a lot of bitter people. Not just on this website but in my clinical rotations as well. Just as there are some bad nursing students, there are some bad and bitter nurses as well who honestly in my opinion have no business in the profession. I know exactly what I am getting myself into and I promise in my late teens and early to mid twenties I worked way harder than most of you have.
I "like" it, because you do make some good points. I'm an "older" nurse and there is some bitterness and resentment among some of us, just as there are students picking nursing as their 5th choice and then getting annoyed when it is "not what they thought". So, yea, you sound like the real deal, and good luck to you!
BUT (and there is always a but) just as we don't know how hard you've worked in your life, don't presume that you have worked harder or more than anyone else in this forum.
The perception that older nurses are as a rule bitter, resentful, complaining and negative is an inaccurate one. It appears as though you subscribe to the perception, though, because your post is not particularly respectful of the experience and knowledge that older nurses possess and is very DISRESPECTFUL in indicating that you think we should retire. What makes you think that older practicing nurses are any more forgetful than the brand new nurse who keeps forgetting things because she hasn't mastered time management or critical thinking? And can't do the physical work? Most older nurses who are still on the job CAN do the physical work, and when the time comes that they cannot, they seek less physical positions.
There should be a balance of older and younger nurses, but my function on the job is to take care of patients, not just to pass on knowledge to new grads.
CCuser
103 Posts
Well - it seems scandal and corruption are alive and well. Have you read the thread about Magnet?
The threads about what they are doing to experienced nurses? How they are looking for reasons to fire them, just to hire cheaper new nurses for tax breaks? The lateral violence and the bullying that is currently going on. And its never publicized. How the nurse Managers send the person who is being bullied to counselling, and leave the bully on the floor just because they are productive. I mean - it just goes on and on and on. I just don't think it truly lives up to being the "most trusted profession". Id like to think that.