seethelight

When I graduated from LPN school in 1983 they were talking about doing away with LPN's. The "new LPN" would need an associate degree and an RN would need her bachelor's degree. Here it is 23 years later and we are still talking about the same thing. I have gone back to school and have become a RN with an associate degree, returned again and received a BS; however, did not want nursing, I wanted to be able to move in another direction so I have a BS in Psych with a minor in nursing. I took all the BSN classes but only took the teaching exam and not the other two parts of the clinical. Since I am back in school for my MS in Community Health Services along with a MS in wellness promotion and slid in my elective slot a MS certificate in gerontology. I am taking my last two classes now to complete my MS and am hoping to give myself the Christmas gift of finishing my classes....I then have to do a internship so by spring I will totally be finished. Why did I not get a BSN or MSN......well truthfully I feel like this......when I got out of school I loved nursing, even enough to go back for my RN. Things then slid down hill. Nurses are overworked, salaries are a joke, and worst of all (since all of us can take being overworked and underpaid...we are all use to that) we are taken advantaged of. Believe me I understand that we will never be paid like other fields are paid but we need to get real. I believe that some of us have gotten real and are leaving the profession. I have a sister who works in the sales business in a hotel and makes base $60,000 with no college, I have a stepbrother who works for a Barnes & Nobles reviewing. He has a bach. degree and just started with a salary of $124,000. My stepdaughter just graduated with a bach degree in marketing. Her first job is with an insurance company but not doing marketing she is in the underwriting dept and can transfer if a marketing position opens...she started 4 months ago with $45,000 no experience. Here I am a RN with a BS in psych/minor in nursing, MS certificate in gerontology, my school nurse certification and almost finished with my MS and making $40,000.....oh that was with a large raise this year. Maybe nurses are beginning to be tired of being taken advantaged of.....being the nature that nurses are I do not think that any of us want to have the big bucks because we do do this type of work for the satisfaction that we receive and we are dedicated....but like someone on here mentioned before, we deal with life and death situations all the time but do not get compensated for it. It is not like if we make a mistake we lose a business deal etc. If we make a mistake it could cost someone their life, affect a family's life, our life, our family's life etc. I believe we should be compensated for what we do. I frankly am tired of living paycheck to paycheck. Unless you have a spouse with a decent salary you can probably associate with this. Possibly nurses are beginning to realize this and want out of the profession. Those that are new to the profession will probably discover this down the road. I do not think it will take the new nurses of today that much time to see this. The nursing shortage has created a sense of security for those that want job security. I believe that this is why many are now going into nursing...hopefully they will have the stamina to last. Requiring everyone to have a BSN is crazy. I believe that many will leave nursing if that goes through. I cannot see how it will though because I think that nursing overall is in crisis right now. We all can remember how much work it took to get through nursing school or college in general. Many nurses may not have the time, the money, or their situations may not permit them to return to school. Hopefully everyone will be grandfathered, but what effect will this have on others choosing to go into the nursing profession?

In my school each classroom has a phone. I have developed a system that when it is med time I ring the phone and then hang up. This gets the attention of the teacher and the student. The student then comes to the health office for the medication. This is working quite well for me. Hope this helps.