KalipsoRed21

Subdermal, as stated in my post, I have worked SEVERAL positions in the nursing field. I also did travel nursing. Travel nursing is the only pay I ever got that was worthy but not when taking into account the sacrifice for dyne delays it put on me trying to have children. Can’t very well get pregnant when you aren’t near your spouse. Now I am old and can’t get pregnant due age. All other positions were poor paying with asinine expectations. My further argument would be I shouldn’t have to ‘think outside the box’ for decent compensation and reasonable job expectations. My husband is a bricklayer who was paid to apprentice for 2 years and now makes $54 an hour with all the same benefits I have plus a pension, which I don’t have. My husband is in a union and it amazes me every day how well compensated he is for his trade. They get breaks, they don’t work mandatory over time and when they do work extra they are very well compensated. And staff safety is paramount. He didn’t have to ‘think outside the box’ for this appropriate compensation, he joined a union. Every high paying nursing position I have seen is a demand to be available 24 hours a day. I never agreed to give up my life when I became a nurse and I shouldn’t have to just to get well compensated for being the well educated and experienced nurse I am.

Personal opinion. I have spent 11 years as a nurse. I have had the experience of floor nursing, tele, cardiac step down, emergency, travel, infusion, and now home health. I wish I could tell you I felt my $47,000 dollars for a BSN were worth it, but I don’t. I, after 11 years as a nurse, would tell you to change your degree or take a lower paying job in any other career field job at $10 an hour to start. In the long run you probably will be happier and end up with greater income potential. In 2008 when I started as a tele floor RN, I made 20.47/hr which was a dollar an hour more than anyone who can to the position never being a nurse aid prior to their first RN Yes, I LOVE my patients. The thought of failing them and the crappy world of medicine I would be leaving them with is a large reason I stay. But that reason is starting to fade. The realization that the only people I can rely on is my family and I cannot continue to let my oath to my patients continue to impede that. It is not worth it. If you cannot be a salesman for medicine or think of people as dollar signs, then do not go into medicine. If you think you will make a decent living and that the school debt is worth it, it may be, but only if you start with an associates degree or plan to go into management 2 years after you get your BSN. I wish I could advise you differently. I wish I could tell you that all the sacrifices you made to get where you are were meaningful and will lead you to great things, but I can’t. For most of you it won’t. The idea that nursing is a ‘calling’ is a subtle way to keep us under paid and permanent scapegoat for the field of medicine, don’t be one of the dunces that fell for it like I did.