What nursing shortage? Not around here...they don't need nurses.

angel337, MSN, RN · Aug 27, 2004

i don't want to come accross as discouraging or negative (especially to new nurses or students) but reading this thread only confirmed what i already knew, which is...there is no such thing as job security. if nurisng could be outsourced...bekieve me, we all would be unemployed. employers don't take care of their employess and in turn employees feel no sense of obligation to their job. i have always respected the nursing profession, but now that i am a nurse i look at it differently. years ago people used to work one job for 35 years and retire. now people have resumes two and three pages long from job hopping. i can see why too, because as time goes on, employers show people that they could care less about their experience and knowledge. everything now is about being cost effective as opposed to quality effective. so what do people do, they elect to job hop to get the most money for their expertise and so they can feel appreciated. i do believe overall that nursing is a stable dependable job, especially in the big cities, but employers are not stupid..they know that nursing is HARD work..they know that people can only do bedside nursing for so long before they look for something less stressful and this is why they could care less about retention. they expect people to quit within 2 years of securing a new position. i like my job alot. my manager is supportive, we have great charge nurses and more than enough support staff but it wasn't always like this, we had to fight for our rights to work safely and efficiently. unfortunately it is not like this every where and nurses refuse to stay. so yes there is a nursing shortage, but people move on after so long and look for something less stressful. i feel very blessed to work in the environment i work in, but all it takes is for one person in upper management to decide that we are "over staffed" and then we will go down that road to being short again. they will never get it.

Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN · Aug 27, 2004

I totally agree w/ you, angel337.

Jo Dirt · Aug 27, 2004

for all you younger nurses, if you are below batcherlors get on the stick and advance yourself...at some point you may be bone tired and want to get off floor nursing no matter how satisfiying you may find it now...as for the phasing out of cna/lpn it comes around in cycles but sometimes there are not enough nurses to staff a hospital...

I feel compelled to interject here. A BSN doesn't necessarily guarantee a desk job, either. I work with a BSN who is 60 yrs. old and recently came to work the floor of the nursing home (just like an LPN) because her desk job at another nursing home where she worked had been eliminated.

But generally, I believe you are probably right. A BSN will get his/her foot in the door easier than an diploma nurse, I would think.

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Sep 3, 2004

After the things I've seen posted about Texas employment practices and poor treatment of nurses? No thanks. Spread the word for us that until they shape up, they can stay short.
BTW, I'm talking about such deplorable nonsense as the lack of workers comp. insurance and firing of employees who are injured and unable to work, even if it is a job-related injury. In EVERY other state, to the best of my knowledge - that is illegal. It may seem like a minor thing to be upset about but not when you consider that nurses are the profession/occupation MOST likely to experience a back injury - more so than firefighters or construction workers...and Texas law allows for these poor nurses to be thrown out with the trash, after being worked half to death and injured in the line of duty, and the hospitals just trade them in for this year's model (new grad). Union busting is also popular in TX as well, from what other posters have said. That is why I say no thanks -- nothing against all you great Texans out there - just the poor employment practices. :)

I think North Texas is wonderfull

Good Work

Good Golf

who could ask for more

bulletproofbarb · Sep 3, 2004

If there truely was a nursing shortage, then agency nurses wouldn't get cancelled. Having read agency nurses board and been one back in AQustralia and UK, seems like their is no shortage of nurses, just a shortage of money to pay us, hence, no work and those in permanent ward positions get overworked.

CCU NRS · Sep 3, 2004

hmmm, is there a nursing shortage?
not around here.
the hospitals around here don't have any openings...
.....of course that might be because they staff bare bones.
i don't know how they get away with it. :uhoh21:

where exactly are you talking about? the united states has opening in just about every state. perhaps not in the small towns but all major cities are short.

iliket3 · Sep 3, 2004

Rep:
Do you know which states do they recruit nurses from your country?
And Steak, which state are you in that there is no new hirings? I heard Minnesota has too mnay nurses now.
I am only taking pre-requisites but after I graduate I certainly will move to any place where I can find a job, no matter which state in US (not Hawaii or Alaska though).

I live in MN and have been job hunting for almost 2 months. I call one particular hospital every week and a half to talk with them. The job market is awlful in northern MN. We are actually looking at moving next spring if I can't get a job. I also need to get into ICU. So our plan is, hopefully get a job this fall/winter, work general floor for 6-8 mos and apply in ICU. If this doesn't happen - we're moving. Pretty sad because I went into nursing "knowing" I would never have to worry about a job. HA!!!!

lil9008 · Sep 3, 2004

I feel that there is a nursing shortage. There are jobs and their hiring but there is a preference for BSN RN's. There is presently a job freeze in one of the hospitals. So with hospitals being very picky and positions frozen limits RN's from being hired.

reyna · Sep 3, 2004

i've been on "vacation" for about a month and a half already...usually as soon as you step inside their human resourses department they'll ask you when you can start! well maybe the healthcare staff strike has something to do with it too huh???

youknowho · Sep 4, 2004

Ok this thread is just scaring the crap out of me since I am borrowing up to by eyeballs to pay for school.:stone

Snoopd · Sep 4, 2004

I agree with you. I beleive the "shortage" is being created and hyped by the hospital and HMO "machine". This allows them to use special immigration loop holes to import foreign nurses who are willing to work for less. This isn't just damaging to U.S. nurses seeking to earn middle class wages, but is creating a huge "brain drain" in foreign countries - it's damaging their health care system because their experienced nurses are trying to come to the U.S. As you stated the huge influx of new nurses from abroad, and I might add, our new U.S. graduates, will dilute the market and make nurses look like a "dime a dozen" to hospitals and HMO's, thus driving down wages. Here is a related example: the M.D.'s have gotten smart. Into the 1990's if one didn't or couldn't attend a U.S. medical school, one went to Europe or the Caribbean, got the M.D., came back to the U.S. and usually had little trouble passing the boards and obtaining U.S. residencies in U.S. hospitals. Foreign educated doctors also had little trouble practicing in the U.S. Now that door has been slammed shut! The AMA has gotten smart and has started to protect the U.S.'s market for M.D.'s. It's now nearly impossible for anyone with an "off shore" M.D. degree to become licensed here. This keeps the M.D. market limited, and thus a select "few" are allowed to earn more because they are considered precious and in demand. Here's a nursing example, the big rage in nursing right now is to become a NP. "Everybody and their grandma" is in NP school or has graduated from NP school. The NP schools love it! Lots of revenue for them, job creation and promotions for themselves, but the new NP graduates are having trouble finding NP positions, are forced to work as NP's at RN wages, or go back to working as RN's. This is lessening the economic power of the NP degree. What's the answer to this "dilution" of the nursing profession? We are practicing a partial solution right now! The NCLEX!! This is the biggest stumbling block that foreign nurses face when seeking U.S. employment. Many of them can't pass it, thus the are relegated, as least temporarily, to work as NA's. This helps protect RN positions for U.S. nurses. I think the other big solution is legislative in nature. U.S. nurses need to organize and have a strong lobbying voice in Washington so that we can have legislation passed that will protect U.S. educated nurses. The AMA has done it to keep foreign M.D.'S away, why can't we do the same? Finally, back to the NCLEX. Many people B*tch and moan about this test, many question its usefullness as an assessment tool to measure nursing proficiency, most live in fear of it, but it is the greatest defense we have against foreign nurses taking American jobs and abandoning the sick in their own nations. This test, along with nursing education itself, needs to continue becoming more difficult so that education standards in nursing continue to rise. This will help protect U.S. jobs, legitimize the profession, and weed out those that are incompetent. Limiting the number of nursing programs in the U.S. would also help promote the profession and raise wages. There is a reason there are only 125 medical schools in the US, it keep demand high, and quality high. How many nursing programs are there? I don't know. With all these "online degrees" added in it must be in the thousands. That is pathetic. It's just another way that the nursing profession is becoming over stocked and diluted. Hospitals and HMO's must be loving it - it's an ever growing cheaper pool of labor for them to pick through and choose. And if you have a grievance, they can "kick you to the curb side" and hire the next starving nurse waiting in line - soon we will be called "nurse associates" - kind of Walmartish. There is no shortage of nurses, only employers who don't want to hire them and pay them what they are worth - it's becoming a long drawn out waiting game with 500,000 to 600,000 RN's waiting on the sidelines for a decent, economically palletable, job offer.

I think that crying SHORTAGE, SHORTAGE, SHORTAGE!!! gives hospitals a convenient excuse to recruit foreign nurses to be brought in at a lower rate of pay. It also serves as an attempt to flood the market with new nurses in an effort to make supply larger than demand - which legitimates keeping salaries low. Health care is notorious for manipulating public perception for their own advantage. Remember when antitrust laws were relaxed "for the greater good" (HA!) to allow pharmaceutical companies to merge (Smith, Glaxo, and Kline become SmithGlaxoKline) so that research funds could be combined, new drugs could be developed faster, and the companies could work together rather than against each other, blah, blah, blah. What really came of that? Exactly what the antitrust laws were designed to prevent: rather than having Smith, Glaxo, and Kline competing for business with drug prices, SmithGlaxoKline decides what the price of the med is going to be and that is the end of it. Hence, all the furor over people getting their Rx meds from Canada, where they are cheaper. The big conglomerate is all upset over losing its (illegally obtained if the law had not been relaxed for it) millions of dollars.
I think TPTB are trying to do the same thing to nursing. Just my thoughts, though.

vaughanmk · Sep 4, 2004

The hospital census is so low in Kansas City this summer there is one hospital that got their butt reamed by enough nurses for being canceled, that they are now cutting back on office staff hours. Instead of working 8-5 it is now 8-3 or M-Th. They determined it wasn't fair to only cut nursing hours so they are now spreading it across the board. But of coorifice there is still a "shortage" and they are still posting new positions because when census picks back up they don't think they will have enough to cover all shift this winter. Go figure.