Of course the popular media and thinking may disagree but...
I actually heard that from a Hospital CEO and it took me a while to realize he was right, but the complete thought is not finished.
There is no nursing shortage! There is only a shortage of nurses that are willing to put up with the crap,BS, sometimes lousy pay, and eternal vindictive oversight from lousy management.
Check out some ANA or goverment statistics about how many NON-practicing RN's there are today. Thousands! Ask yourself why they are not practicing.
Ever seen management use a nurse as a scapegoat instaed of facing problems?
Forget the pay for a minute what about scheduling? I've negotiated contracts for staff and/or travel where I've offered to work EVERY weekend if only I could get consecutive work days or offered to work complete coverage by working opposite another employee and both of us agreeing to work mandatory overtime so we could work 7/7.
Responses I've had include:
MGR:but day shift likes their schedule
ME: but we work nights
MGR: but days likes the two on two off etc,and thats the way the schedule always works
ME: but we work nights, it doesn't matter, as long as a nurse follows
MGR: of course it matters, then nights would have a different schedule than days.
ME: (in my puny brain) How do I explain this to a brick?
or lately I've heard:
You'll work the schedule we tell you when we tell you and you don't tell us what you want. Your schedule is flexible for our needs.
The places I work seem to be understaffed by their own causing and frankly, sometimes it is just the money.
The shortage is a figment of big hospital corporations and special interests to drive more people into the profession and to justify the importation of more nurses from other countries.
Yes there is a demand for nurses, which makes many nurses able to exact some accomodation from their job, some pay raises and some say in how the workplace runs. A demand for staff means nurses get treated better and have opportunity.
If there was a real shortage, employers would be looking how to encourage nurses to stay in the profession or return to it.
If there was a real shortage - some places just could not run or more places would work with you.
I like my work, and I am paid as well as I can negotiate. I just think the hype of a shortage is overblown.
Just think of the opposite - how would your employer really act if they could pick and choose and REALLY not care if they made you happy.
In every state in which I've ever practiced nursing, you can't just pay a renewal fee and keep your license. Many states require a nurse to actually work a minimum specified number of hours per year to maintain active licensure status.
That's been my experience, too. In most states (definitely the three I've practiced in), if you're not working in nursing at least part-time, your license automatically becomes "inactive" after a specified number of years; you can still renew it, but you can't work with it until you've met whatever requirements the BON has established -- typically, completing a nursing "refresher" course -- to return it to "active" status.
Isn't the ANA or any other american nurses' organization doing anything about those problems then? I believe that American nurses are more assertive and they can do something about those problems that they are faced with.
I do not think that Filipino nurses keep quiet all the time. Several Filipino nurses walked out of their work in NY. I've a cousin working in Cali and she's good at refusing unbearable working conditions. She's an OR nurse and a traveler. I met a Filipino nurse who came for a vacation and he was telling me about better working conditions and how nurses are working indepently back there. He's in the ICU.
We're able to persevere the worst of conditions but not for a very long time. Maybe that's what makes us different.
Still, I'd like to try America and what it can offer me. I sound desperate and I am. I believe going to America is worth giving a try. If things don't turn out well then am glad to be working here in the Philippines or in some other country.
Maybe it is high time also for American nurses to live up to how foreign nurses see them - independent, assertive and almost good at anything. That's how highly we regard you.
Those are interesting thoughts.
As far as Filipino nurses standing up to their employers, that is more fiction than fact. You cite a few instances but this is not what I have seen happen at numerous hospitals all over the U.S. Since you are not here to see things for yourself, is it not possible that these nurses you have heard from have embellished things, either to look better themselves or to keep other nurses like you from being afraid to come to the U.S.? I have met Filipino nurses who were paid money to recruit other nurses. Do you honestly think that nurse told the truth? Recruiters are taught to bring up only the good aspects of jobs. And because so many nurses in the Phillipines believe that the U.S. is heaven to work in, they only hear what they want to hear.
You cite the Filipino nurses in NY who stood up and walked out but you failed to mention that those same nurses have been formally charged by U.S. legal system for numerous infractions. Thus far I have never seen our government charge U.S. born and bred nurses with something like this on such a large scale. I don't think that this is a coincidence. This may very well be a message that the company is trying to send to all Filipino nurses - try to buck the system and we will punish you with fines, loss of license, deportation, or even jail. How many Filipino nurses do you think are up in NY right now willing to stand up for things when they have seen what is happening to this group of nurses?
You challenge U.S. nurses to fix the problems in our country that we complain about. I could say the same for you. You have already stated in a later post that you do not plan to stay in the states but intend to return home like most other nurses do. This only perpetuates the problem in the U.S. because you do not have a vested interest in making things better in this country. Your concern only seems to be bringing the U.S. dollar back to your homeland. The influx of U.S. dollars to the Phillipines will never fix the country's problems, including the poverty there. Why are such well-spoken nurses like yourself not staying in the Phillipines and working to change the problems there? I challenge you and nurses like you to stop running to the U.S. for a higher wage and stay in the Phillipines and work to change the numerous problems that you all are seeming to run away from. The U.S. was born out of people willing to fight for a better lifestyle, perhaps you can share that passion with your fellow Filipinos and turn your country into something as wonderful as how you view the U.S.
Why are such well-spoken nurses like yourself not staying in the Phillipines and working to change the problems there? I challenge you and nurses like you to stop running to the U.S. for a higher wage and stay in the Phillipines and work to change the numerous problems that you all are seeming to run away from.
Because without American dollars flowing back their cousins and siblings and nieces and nephews can't attend school and sometimes even eat.
Going to school involves huge sacrifices on the part of their entire extended family.
I have no problem with people working abroad and then going home. I have family who live and work outside of the USA. Should they be barred from doing this because they plan to retire here? I think not.
Until ALL nurses stand together things won't change.
I'd love to work, say, as an "American in Paris" or in Zurich, or in London, for a time.
BUT that is different from someone coming from an impoverished country to work in a rich country: I'd be someone from a rich, Western country going to another rich, Western country, and I would be doing so because I wanted to experience Europe, practice my (admittedly rusty) French, etc., for a time - and not as a means to send money back home to my family or to influence a native system.
It would be a great thing if the citizens of all impoverished countries could work to make their OWN country better. And I swear I don't mean to sound cruel or cold when I say that! It would indeed be a better world to live in were that to happen.
Anyway, I think this is a touchy subject; but an important one, nevertheless.
You challenge U.S. nurses to fix the problems in our country that we complain about. I could say the same for you. You have already stated in a later post that you do not plan to stay in the states but intend to return home like most other nurses do. This only perpetuates the problem in the U.S. because you do not have a vested interest in making things better in this country. Your concern only seems to be bringing the U.S. dollar back to your homeland. The influx of U.S. dollars to the Phillipines will never fix the country's problems, including the poverty there. Why are such well-spoken nurses like yourself not staying in the Phillipines and working to change the problems there? I challenge you and nurses like you to stop running to the U.S. for a higher wage and stay in the Phillipines and work to change the numerous problems that you all are seeming to run away from. The U.S. was born out of people willing to fight for a better lifestyle, perhaps you can share that passion with your fellow Filipinos and turn your country into something as wonderful as how you view the U.S.
I agree 100%. I have thought the same thing many times when reading threads on this board. Thank you.
It is touchy and very complicated. We have to understand, or seek to understand, that the world is changing. What does it mean that we are shifting to a more global economy? How will that affect each of us? What is our responsibility as a global powerhouse and leader?
I feel that there is a great shift coming. I do not feel entitled to many of the things that those in previous generations felt they earned. I often wish it were so, but just as we keep being told "you can't count of social security", I think I need to focus on the world as a whole and setting up systems that benefit all of us. Unfortunately for those of us who have been on the top...that will be more difficult because it means we are the ones who will have to lower our standards a bit in order to afford basic human rights to others. I pray that we can do this gracefully and in love, because we are headed for a significant adjustment, either way.
It is touchy and very complicated. We have to understand, or seek to understand, that the world is changing. What does it mean that we are shifting to a more global economy? How will that affect each of us? What is our responsibility as a global powerhouse and leader?
I feel that there is a great shift coming. I do not feel entitled to many of the things that those in previous generations felt they earned. I often wish it were so, but just as we keep being told "you can't count of social security", I think I need to focus on the world as a whole and setting up systems that benefit all of us. Unfortunately for those of us who have been on the top...that will be more difficult because it means we are the ones who will have to lower our standards a bit in order to afford basic human rights to others. I pray that we can do this gracefully and in love, because we are headed for a significant adjustment, either way.
You raise very good points - and well stated, too.
I agree with you that a shift is coming that will put the West into conflict with itself, namely, between its own altruism and its own individualism - two (sometimes opposing) characteristics that have made the West great, and why people from around the world have flocked to it.
(And I understand the desire of business people for cheap labor does not technically fit into the "altruism" category - although it DOES have an altruistic "side effect" for people from poor countiries - a very "Fountainhead"-ish observation!)
Of course the popular media and thinking may disagree but...
I actually heard that from a Hospital CEO and it took me a while to realize he was right, but the complete thought is not finished.
There is no nursing shortage! There is only a shortage of nurses that are willing to put up with the crap,BS, sometimes lousy pay, and eternal vindictive oversight from lousy management.
Check out some ANA or goverment statistics about how many NON-practicing RN's there are today. Thousands! Ask yourself why they are not practicing.
Ever seen management use a nurse as a scapegoat instaed of facing problems?
Forget the pay for a minute what about scheduling? I've negotiated contracts for staff and/or travel where I've offered to work EVERY weekend if only I could get consecutive work days or offered to work complete coverage by working opposite another employee and both of us agreeing to work mandatory overtime so we could work 7/7.
Responses I've had include:
MGR:but day shift likes their schedule
ME: but we work nights
MGR: but days likes the two on two off etc,and thats the way the schedule always works
ME: but we work nights, it doesn't matter, as long as a nurse follows
MGR: of course it matters, then nights would have a different schedule than days.
ME: (in my puny brain) How do I explain this to a brick?
or lately I've heard:
You'll work the schedule we tell you when we tell you and you don't tell us what you want. Your schedule is flexible for our needs.
The places I work seem to be understaffed by their own causing and frankly, sometimes it is just the money.
The shortage is a figment of big hospital corporations and special interests to drive more people into the profession and to justify the importation of more nurses from other countries.
Yes there is a demand for nurses, which makes many nurses able to exact some accomodation from their job, some pay raises and some say in how the workplace runs. A demand for staff means nurses get treated better and have opportunity.
If there was a real shortage, employers would be looking how to encourage nurses to stay in the profession or return to it.
If there was a real shortage - some places just could not run or more places would work with you.
I like my work, and I am paid as well as I can negotiate. I just think the hype of a shortage is overblown.
Just think of the opposite - how would your employer really act if they could pick and choose and REALLY not care if they made you happy.
MY FWIW. Do yout think it's way off base?
I agree Fizz.. I am working at a long term care center until I get on with the VA. I have an appointment just takes time for the feds to do their thing. I work 5 on 3 off and one other nurse does too the rest work 3 days a week including our main night shift person. So at least 6 times a month I or another swing shift nurse have to stay until 2 am and day shift nurse comes in at 2 am to relieve. Last night I worked until 2 am and the real kicker is I had the whole facility 57 patients 3 floors no other licensed staff and 4 CNAs. This happens quite a lot. I want to quit I can't do the type of care i need to with these ratios and I have to pass meds as well.
I know my license is in danger and the worst thing is the residents are being treated the worst. I would call the state on them but I don't think it would matter. The DNS knows what is going on and she stated she can't work the floor as WA. state law forbids it. I have not read a WAC or RCW that states that... I think it is about money this facility is being bought by another company and they have cut allied health staff as well. I have only been there 2 months but its nuts. The CNAs and housekeeping staff are unionized there but the nurses are not.. Its just a mess and I am just sick everytime I work into work and its like that... I am not lazy but 2 floors most of the week is not fair to the residents or me as an RN. I want to quit but I am trying to hang in there... You just never know what you are getting into.
I missed 2 days due to a kidney stone and had a doctor's note and my DNS threatened me about my absences . I love being a nurse but places like this ought to be shut down or the state take them over... I am sorry for so long of a vent but I have to leave there one way or another. I wanted to give proper notice but I just don't know if I can hang in there. I am going to call the BON here and see what I can do if anything... I am so upset my BP has been through the roof in the last month.... pray my new job comes soon I am but I worry about the residents there after I leave. thanks for letting me get it off my chest...
In every state in which I've ever practiced nursing, you can't just pay a renewal fee and keep your license. Many states require a nurse to actually work a minimum specified number of hours per year to maintain active licensure status.
Well I have been licensed in Missouri Oklahoma and Washington state and I have never been asked how many hours I work or plan to work they just wanted to know about background, or if my license was restricted due to problems etc. I was asked to take a $60 course on HIV/AIDS in Washington state even though I have taken care of my HIV positive patients prior to moving here. I could not prove it through transcripts from my college so I took the course. Though Lord knows every state is different. :-)
Well, everyone here is always complaining that we're working short, can't find nurses, yada yada yada.
I am the computer geek nurse. I just asked the DON if she would like me to pick up a shift here and there on the weekend if she's short - her answer was no because they'd have to pay me overtime. It's not in her budget. No dice.
So it isn't that there are no nurses, it's that they don't want to (or can't) pay us any money.
I don't mind hiring a foreign nurse as long as their English skills and knowledge are okay. I am in St. Paul and we have a large multi-cultural group of nurses in this city. My problem is, their English or enunciation is poor and I get continuous complaints from my residents, families and the doctors that try to understand them on the phone. Or, when i try to explain something to them, I have to try to do it in many different ways just to make sure the meaning is caught.
I interviewd a nurse who had recently gotten her MN license but, had 15 years of experience in China. Most of the things i had to ask her about, she couldn't comprehend. For example, I mentioned we perform our INR's inhouse... she didn't know what an INR was. I then explained it was a lab needed to measure the clotting of the blood so yu could adjust the coumadin dose... what's coumadin? So, asked her if she knew about Warfarin..... no luck. Anything I tried just did not connect. We spoke of IV's. In China apparently, they put a needle in the arm, administer the med, and take the needle out until the next dose is needed.
After speaking with this nurse for an hour, I didn not hire her but, was left wondering how she passed the boards.
One of my LPN's is in school for her RN degree. She has stated how much redundancy and slower paced it is compared to when she got her LPN degree due to the fact that more then half of her classmates have English as a second language. Those same students are allowed to repeat classes over an over and get extra assistance just to get thme through school. That's great.... push them through and then we get them in the workforce and we are spending thousands of dollars more in trying to get them orientated into the facility. Sadly, some just can never get it and we need to let them go by their 90 days.
Isn't the ANA or any other american nurses' organization doing anything about those problems then? I believe that American nurses are more assertive and they can do something about those problems that they are faced with.
Maybe it is high time also for American nurses to live up to how foreign nurses see them - independent, assertive and almost good at anything. That's how highly we regard you.
Isn't there a Philippines' nursing association and if so, why not?
Maybe foreign nurses should start working in their own countries, improving their own conditions. Healthcare in the Philippines is notoriously poor, nurses poorly paid and with seriously dangerous ratios.
Why are YOU not attempting to correct those conditions in your country, especially if you want to live in your later years there.
You ask us to live up to your expectations of us, so you can come here and work safely and earn a good living.....but why are you not doing this in your own country?
It is easy to tell us what WE should be doing....what about what you should be doing to elevate nursing in your own home?
FWIW. Do yout think it's way off base?
elkpark
14,633 Posts
That's been my experience, too. In most states (definitely the three I've practiced in), if you're not working in nursing at least part-time, your license automatically becomes "inactive" after a specified number of years; you can still renew it, but you can't work with it until you've met whatever requirements the BON has established -- typically, completing a nursing "refresher" course -- to return it to "active" status.