Petition for new nurses

Nurses Job Hunt

Published

For all those new graduate nurses out there who are searching for jobs and begging for interviews. It's time to do something in between resume sending and interminable waiting. Nurses are the largest group of healthcare providers in the United States. LET'S USE OUR NEWLY ACQUIRED VOICE!!!

Below is a link to a petition that will request that the President provide stimulus incentives for hospitals and healthcare corporations to train and retain new graduate R.Ns.

We heard about the "nursing shortage", heeded "the call", put in untold effort and toil to achieve the coveted license. IT'S TIME TO TAKE ACTION.

We need to unite and help create options for ourselves at the local, state and national level. We are in the best position to HELP OURSELVES.

This is only one idea that one nurse had to try and improve the situation for others. Does anyone else have any other ideas? Are there other avenues, solutions, ideas that some of the most hardworking and creative professionals can explore?

Will you sign? Or will you enjoy the complacency of your perhaps fortunate employment while your colleagues who worked beside you remain without a job and deep debt.

Please pass this on to those who you think will support our cause. Social media and networking may be one way to make our numbers and needs known.

http://wh.gov/l27GO

WE need 100,000 signatures by October 22, and I KNOW that WE can get them!!

Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.

I signed the petition...give it some time...looks like it was set up yesterday. :speechless:

I for one am not terribly worried about a new grad taking my job but I am however worried about consistently having to work in a high acuity environment with minimal staff and needing to contain costs.

New grads cost money to train and so do "new" seasoned nurses...we have to spend money to train nurses for turnover anyways...why would it be a bad thing to be proactive or for the nursing community to request employer incentives to help cushion the cost? :confused:

Our facility's could just continue to pay for training out of pocket (er out of budget) instead I guess. Geez, the government bails out bankrupt multi-gazillion dollar banks...hmmm...

Specializes in Medical Surgical.

I was really angry as a new grad not to be hired to work in a hospital as well. I graduated top of my class. I was smart. I was strong. I was everything they were looking for but was passed up time and time again, actually completely ignored.

I did something that many new nurses wont do, and took a job outside the hospital. I was one of the first to be employed in my class and now have several years experience, none of it in the hospital.

Hospital jobs are going to more and more scarce as time goes on. The larger portion of nurses are going to be needed in jobs other then med/surg nursing, and new grads just need to get used to it.

The future of nursing is Geriatrics, LTC, Rehabilitation centers. The baby boomers are going to be exploding these places as they age. New grads need to get over the idea that they are to good for these places and work instead on improving them. A better petition idea would be to come up with nurse to patient ratios in SNFs because as it is, 60 to 1 is common and dangerous.

#1. I dont know if this is an issue in all areas, but in mine, the doctors offices and clinics have been using "medical assistants" instead of licensed nurses in their offices. from what i understand they function in the capacity of a nurse. the only thing they dont do is give injections. they field the calls from patients having problems , relay that info back to md, then when orders are rec'd , they process them .....then inform patient, call pharmacies .....they also handle calls from home health nurses reporting their patients problems. payers are usually medicare/medicaid and it would seem like there should be minimum standards that require a licensed nurse.

#2, with obamas push to keep patients in their homes and out of long term care facilities, there will be an increased need for nursing services. home health agencies charge the government an outrageous amount for very little services. It would make sense for nurses to be able to work independently (with md orders but without agency involvement) with medicare/medicaid reimbursement.

it seems like the rules keep getting more restrictive in what nurses can do, but seem to be loosening up for others in the medical field, including the unlicensed.

I intend no snarkyness in my comment, so please don't read it the wrong way.

I feel that the newer graduates in nursing need to be educated and fully understand what the nursing shortage entails. The majority of Nursing Jobs that are difficult to fill are far from glorious. What we really need are more graduates interested in geriatric nursing, psych nursing, public health nursing, and home health. Nearly half of my graduating class at a large, highly ranked nursing school felt entitled to ICU, pediatric, and maternity staff nursing position, right out of school.

I feel that there is no myth about the nursing shortage and I believe that the nursing shortage continues to be very real. The bureau of labor statistics has more than enough evidence to prove my point, despite the fact that many hospitals in saturated urban areas hire few-to-no new nurses.

What is really needed in nursing s an attitude change so that the right people go into nursing for the right reasons. Gone are the days a bright, motivated student can walk into his or her dream ICU or pediatrics job. Additionally, logic dictates the paradigm is to now focus on preventative and long-term care in increasingly ambulatory or hybrid settings. The pressure is on hospitals to discharge patients as soon as possible-- often prematurely.

I live in a saturated urban job market, and I have noticed that most of the recent grads from my class are sitting around complaining that they can't find jobs, yet they scoff at the idea of working at SNF's. Those that don't feel entitled got great jobs at SNF's and the like that actually paid a few dollars higher per hour than the local hospitals do for new grads. Additionally they are learning that the acuity level at many SNF's these days is akin to the more "stable" med-surg patients. Included are several IV Abx and the occasional IV start. Hypotension and bleeds are common assessment data, and q shift VS and assessment are absolutely necessary on these patients. The most resourceful students will be able to "do their time" working 1-3 years at a SNF/Rehab facility and then market themselves at a job interview for higher acuity hospital are by explaining the complex cases that are now encountered in SNF and the limited resources these nurses use relative to the more controlled environment of the hospital.

Any good hiring manager at a hospital should be able to look at a student with 1-3 years work experience and see them as more valuable than a student who sat at home, waiting 15 months for a coveted 'hospital job' to find its way to them. Unfortunately some hiring mangers in hospitals are completely jaded in their thinking, but soon that SNF and LTC = RN career death will have to change; it already is in my area.

Specializes in Psychiatry, Oncology.

Here is a question.

I am an aspiring nurse (applying to accelerated BSN programs) and having read the posts above, I am curious if it is possible and likely to get a hospital job after getting your first experience in non-hospital jobs (LTC, SNF)? Or are you going to be pigeon holed as a non-hospital specialist and always hired only that way?

I am asking this because I have spent 20 years in business prior to making this decision to switch (volunteering at the local hospital inspired me) and I know how this whole hiring thing works in corporate. Hiring managers and, especially, HR do not like to a) think too much or think flexibly and b) take risks. Therefore, in 95% of cases they hire a "square peg" for a "square hole". That way if the person doesn't work out, nobody can blame them for hiring a person without the EXACT experience as the one needed for a particular job. Therefore, tt is almost impossible to switch functions in the same industry or switch industries within the same function. I assume people are people and corporate is corporate everywhere be it consumer packaged goods or health care.

But maybe it is not?

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Here is a question.

I am an aspiring nurse (applying to accelerated BSN programs) and having read the posts above, I am curious if it is possible and likely to get a hospital job after getting your first experience in non-hospital jobs (LTC, SNF)? Or are you going to be pigeon holed as a non-hospital specialist and always hired only that way?

I am asking this because I have spent 20 years in business prior to making this decision to switch (volunteering at the local hospital inspired me) and I know how this whole hiring thing works in corporate. Hiring managers and, especially, HR do not like to a) think too much or think flexibly and b) take risks. Therefore, in 95% of cases they hire a "square peg" for a "square hole". That way if the person doesn't work out, nobody can blame them for hiring a person without the EXACT experience as the one needed for a particular job. Therefore, tt is almost impossible to switch functions in the same industry or switch industries within the same function. I assume people are people and corporate is corporate everywhere be it consumer packaged goods or health care.

But maybe it is not?

In this current market.....corporate is as corporate does. As long as the market remains saturated this will be an issue. However those sitting around looking for an acute care job will get further and further away from actual experience at all.....which lessens their value even more.

The job market stinks right now for all professionals. Depending on your demographic and how far you are willing to travel to find work will determine your success.

Specializes in Psychiatry, Oncology.

Completely agree, sitting and waiting when your chances of getting a job directly depend on experience, does not make sense.

And very true about the job market.

Specializes in Cardiology.

passed nclex today and signed!

Signed. We have to start somewhere.

I wish I had a good idea that would bring us all together.

I feel that the newer graduates in nursing need to be educated and fully understand what the nursing shortage entails. The majority of nursing jobs that are difficult to fill are far from glorious. What we really need are more graduates interested in geriatric nursing, psych nursing, public health nursing, and home health. Nearly half of my graduating class at a large, highly ranked nursing school felt entitled to ICU, pediatric, and maternity staff nursing position, right out of school.

thats not going to happen

if hospitals choose to hire new grads over the more "seasoned" nurses, then that is what they feel is best, its a free market. there are disadvantages to hiring younger new grads because they need long orientations. but the advantages are they tend to learn fast, and they dont complain about staffing ratios like the older nurses do, bc they weren't nurses "back in the good ole days" when cnas were crawling over each other... and a lot of these seasoned nurses are more pickled than they are seasoned, and by pickled i mean sour. :arghh:

Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.
thats not going to happen

Agreed. Most of the new grads that roll through clinicals in my facility want the "glamour specialties" like ICU, L&D, ED, and get offended if you suggest otherwise.

There are jobs out there, just not where the new grads want them to be.

Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
There are jobs out there, just not where the new grads want them to be.
I totally agree. And some new nurses (not all, but some) will read you the Riot Act if you dare suggest they secure employment at a nursing home, home health company, hospice, psych facility, or any healthcare setting outside the acute care hospital.
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