I agree with several posts...first of all I am a BSN new grad/new hire and am overworked to the point of abuse. I too would NOT encourage anyone to go to nursing school. My personal learning experience included only theory and EBP; no skills. I was able to land a job only because I; #1 knew someone and #2 live in a rural type area with a small hospital where having a BSN is attractive to the employer regardless of experience. There are many, many applicants for each job and again, the reason I was able to get my job was because I knew one of the hiring managers. I had no experience and was lucky, very lucky to get a job. However, now that I have the job it is very stressfull since I have no experience. Throw a new grad into a med/surg unit with six or seven moderate to high care patients... Frightening! I've been lucky so far that all of my patients have survived my inexperience. There is NO nursing shortage! The schools have created that myth...as one person has posted...the myth was created to keep the jobs of administrators and educators. Ask any new grad how long it took to find a job or even if they did find a job. I have friends (and by the way we all have BSNs from a major university connected to a learning hospital) that have not been able to get a hospital position...not even at the hospital where we all graduated...and to get anything else you need to have "previous one to two years experience." I find the entire nursing situation very frustrating. Pay a ton for tuition....go to school for years....graduate unprepared for the real world....no jobs....and yet at graduation, what do they preach? You MUST get a Master's Degree!! Yeh ...right....for what? When I enrolled in the program I really wanted to care for patients and people who needed support during an illness....all I'm doing is passing lethal drugs all day and on rare occassion I have a moment to actually look at the patient and do some critical thinking. Another thing that is not looked at very often is the percentage of new hires that quit the profession in the first year. I don't see a lot of information about that hitting the news. Nurses are over worked, abused and underpaid....no matter HOW much they are paid. Nurses are the ones who save lives and take all the responsibility for the patient. Nursing is not healthy for nurses.
