What is the draw to nursing these days

Nurses General Nursing

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I've been isolated in an apparently small corner of the nursing world and it wasn't until I started hanging out here that I've caught up on the current state of nursing*. I've read that it's usually the discontented and disgruntled that post or comment on venting threads but I think there is still a unanimous acknowledgement that nurses are understaffed, overworked, and often under paid. As well as the near universal glutted job market.

Which is then countered by pre nursing students clamoring for acceptance into a program.

It's puzzling to me. Is it denial on the part of those wanting to enter nursing? Or exaggeration on the part of working nurses? The middle is usually where the reality falls but it's hard to ignore that people are intentionally trying jump into what is often described as a pit.

*This actually concerns me as to what I will find when I relocate and try to secure a new position.

It is harder to secure a place in the middle class these days. The other day I was telling my children how many well-paying manufacturing jobs went overseas, travel agents just about vanished and there are few jobs for office support staff in the days of email. The people who might have gone for those jobs(and others) are willing to play musical chairs for the chance of making a decent living. Nursing has an easier entry than a lot of other jobs out there that can give you a secure middle class life.

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.

Even if the hopeful nursing student is up on the current market, lack of employability hasn't stopped people from going into architecture or law. These being fields that have been saturated for years with poor prospects for new graduates.

They fall into the romance that they will be the next Jake Brigance or I.M. Pei. Who am I to burst their bubble. . . Oh yea, COB (not sure my age qualifies me but I think 22yrs experience might do it).

Add to that the rhetoric of "common knowledge" spread around by the general public. I still hear from new people I meet how there is such a nursing shortage. It's hard to get into it with casual acquaintances how I might be in demand (with years of specialty experience), but that this is not the picture for the new graduate. Doesn't help when I hear another news report on the nursing shortage or the excellent pay available for this "two year degree".

As someone else pointed out a few posts ago, I didn't have this wealth of knowledge at my disposal when I decided on nursing. Everyone at the college assured me nursing was highly in demand. When I graduated, my area of the country was actually experiencing a slight contraction in the number of nursing jobs.

I don't know how I would have reacted if I had completed that year of pre-reqs, then found out new jobs were highly competitive. Would I have stuck it out or made alternate plans?

I'm not sure.

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I can answer that....especially if they are young. We are nothing but a bunch of nasty burned out old bats eating our young.

Well, as long as you ADMIT that! :D

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Thank you for the great replies, so many good points.

I would be willing to enter the nursing field at this time knowing what kind of job I could end up in (mine) but I would do it knowing that I'd have to treat the first couple of years like an internship. Well I would if I was still that 19 yr old without kids or mortgage. I would go where I could get experience that would set me up to be marketable, in the bowels of some undesirable hellish place (thinking of someplace like North Dakota in the winter with the oil boom making male to female ratio likely in my favor for needing nurses).

If I were a single mom trying to keep the lights on then I would do whatever I had to do including being overworked, but if I were 20 and making a career choice in this competitive market (not the case when I graduated a 100 years ago) I would approach it the same way anyone that achieves success in a competitive market.

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Specializes in Psych, Substance Abuse.

I was a former journalist. Folks stopped reading newspapers and layoffs ensued. Since I covered medical news, I decided a transition to nursing would be ideal, and so far it has been ideal. I love psych nursing.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.

I'm a new grad, just about 1 yr in as an Lvn. I think nurses do face some challenges at work, and I thank the nurses on AN for opening my eyes to the reality of working as a nurse. For me, I researched my local job mArket prior to becoming an Lvn. I learned the odds of a new grad landing a job and the pay. For me, it all worked out. I really think that people should research their local job market prior to investing time and energy into this career so that you aren't disappointed.

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I believe the actual nursing shortage is happening as those of us who are baby boomers are approaching retirement age. What is not mentioned is that we will have to work longer because the benefits of being retired are being taken away on a daily basis!! Therefore, the potential of a nursing shortage is there, but it may not actually happen because us old bats are having to work longer!!! There is shortages in specialty nursing fields and most likely that will dissipate over time and the younger nurses move into those specialties.

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Specializes in hospice.
Esme is dead-on. The pre-nursing/early nursing school students hear what they want to hear and discard the rest as coming from clueless, disgruntled, baby-eating nurses who can't function in the "real" world of nursing (as defined by the student nurses who are out to save the world).

Well what do you expect when you go stepping all over their dddddrrrreeeeeeeeeaaaaaammmmmm ya big old meanies!

I never expected to develop such a bad attitude toward such an innocuous word, but after reading these boards for a while, I've learned that almost all with the word "dream" are best avoided, especially in the student sections and if letters are repeated as in my example above.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

I'm not a new nurse. However, I got into nursing for the relatively easy route of entry, job opportunities, steady income, and career mobility.

I was a factory worker in my early 20s with a precarious job situation when I took the plunge and enrolled in a 12-month fast-track LVN program in 2004. As I've transitioned from LVN to ASN to BSN over the years, nursing has bestowed job opportunities, steady income and career mobility upon me.

In essence, I did it to help secure my future and gain a foothold in what is left of the rapidly shrinking middle class.

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Specializes in hospice.

What's the draw? Well, for me, I'm working as a CNA, and my employer is one of the few still offering decent educational benefits. I figure if I'm going to work full time and stay up all night anyway, I may as well move up and make more money doing it. I start a one year fast track LPN program next week, and because of those educational benefits, it will be at almost no cost to me. My employer hires LPNs and using the benes obligates me to work for them for one year after I finish. For my personal situation, it seems to be a win all around. I'll finish prereqs and bridge to RN while working as a LPN and getting help to pay for it. It would be stupid for me not to move up in my situation, and frankly, I don't want to be a CNA for the rest of my life. I wouldn't be averse to eventually working my way into a day shift job with more regular hours either. I'm good at the night shift thing but I'm turning 40 this year, and I can't do it forever.

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

Great thread with lots of good points raised. Thanks, everyone.

I think the denial aspect is enormous. Even students who are aware that most new nurses struggle assume that "they'll be different" because they are aware of the problems ahead of time. Or they assume that "passion" will take of everything for them -- as if being warned ahead of time and "passionate about helping people" will inoculate them against bad job markets, bad jobs, stress, burnout, etc. Those people still seem shocked and unprepared when it happens to them.

I also blame the schools for a lot of the problem. That might not be fair, but I think they need to do a better job of preparing students for the real world ... and of screening out those folks who are not likely to succeed ... and helping them find a better fit in the world.

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Well what do you expect when you go stepping all over their dddddrrrreeeeeeeeeaaaaaammmmmm ya big old meanies!

I never expected to develop such a bad attitude toward such an innocuous word, but after reading these boards for a while, I've learned that almost all with the word "dream" are best avoided, especially in the student sections and if letters are repeated as in my example above.

ALL CAPS and !!!!!! give me the same response, someone who hasn't thoroughly checked out the state of nursing.

I think it's better if you know what exhaustion, anxiety and some demoralization truely feels like and deciding it's worth it for a career taking care of many times very unlikable folks under a lot of pressure and less than ideal circumstances.

For me it was worth it, though I can't say I vetted nursing at all (I was ALL CAPS and !!!! as a 19 yr old) but I got into nursing when the acuity was much much lower.

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