What do you think are the current major problems in nursing?

Ayvah, RN · Jan 19, 2008

so basically you mean me as a german nurse?
nici:o

I don't think she means the nurses from other countries themselves, but that the hospitals are just throwing nurses (experienced, new grad, foreign) at the vacancies instead of working on the solving the problems that cause nurses to leave in the first place. Many foreign nurses sign contracts which require them to continue working there, satisfying administration, while the conditions themselves continue to remain poor.

K98 · Jan 19, 2008

1. Management

2. Families want control staffing/assignments

3. Families want to order diagnostics

4. Physicians/Managers that bow to them.

We spend so much time entering data that we hardly have time to care for our patients. Woe to the nurse that forgets ANY of that data.

Overbearing, demanding patients who think they are in a resort. I will wipe their a$$ but I won't kiss it.

Katie82, RN · Jan 19, 2008

8. The public's very outdated perception of the nursing profession
10. The female domination of the nursing profession
My son has been a nurse for 15 years. I have to admit that I tried to talk him out of it when he told me his plans, but only because I remember how poorly male students were treated by instructors when I was in school. He now volunteers for a national organization that works to recruit males to nursing careers. He tells me that his biggest barrier is item #8. Most of the high school kids he speaks with say the same thing - nursing is for women. Until males become more assertive in the recruitint process, it will be a female-dominated profession.

Katie82, RN · Jan 19, 2008

I don't think she means the nurses from other countries themselves, but that the hospitals are just throwing nurses (experienced, new grad, foreign) at the vacancies instead of working on the solving the problems.

I agree, I don't think that was an individual shot, but there are hospitals that are actively recruiting large blocks of foreign - trained nurses to solve staffing issues. There are some disparities among training disciplines around the world. I know of one large hospital that recruited a large number of nurses from outside the country, and now regrets it. In some countries, nurses are still trained to be procedure-focused handmaidens to the doctor instead of problem-solving patient advocates. I have actually been told by one foreign-trained nurse that she doesn't like working here because "American nurses are too pushy and need to learn their place"...

ZootRN · Jan 19, 2008

I agree with many of the above posts, especially The Commuter's.

To me, major problems in nursing boil down to two things:

1. Working short staffed majority of the time.

2. Nurses inhumanity and hostility to each other.

GadgetRN71, ASN, RN · Jan 20, 2008

1) administration having the public think of themselves as "customers" and letting them equate a hospital stay with a stay in a hotel.

2) administration treating nurses like we are children. Ditto for the way some physicians treat us.

3) this view that nurses are "saintly" or "angels". Sounds nice at first until you realize that saints don't expect to be fairly compensated for the work they do.

4) the lateral violence that was tolerated for so long and practiced routinely. When will we nurses realize that change is only going to happen when we stop treating each other like garbage?

Overland1, RN · Jan 21, 2008

1.)Too much government interference in health care (not just Nursing) is a biggie.

2.) Nurses who do not present themselves appropriately when dealing with patients and families really create and perpetuate a poor image of Nursing.

3.) Too much emphasis on "ratio" and too little attention to acuity load.

Willow Moonsidhe · Oct 24, 2009

I have been a nurse since 1984. I worked Trauma, ICU, as a Med-Surg Supervisor and L&D; for 10 years. I have returned finally after an injury and a long recovery to a whole new world. I agree the nurse to patient ratio with the high acuity levels are insane. We use to work as a team now all I see is primary care nursing. One RN with maybe a PCT that use to be a LPN but has been demoted and is angry all the time. I had open chest surgery and I can not turn the patients without help. No one has a team effort and they are only causing back problems for themselves later in life. The acuity of the patients is not a factor in the assignments, only the numbers. Younger nurses don't respect the knowledge level of the older nurses and play lots of passive aggressive games. I am really sad at what I see.

I wish they could only go back a few years and see how people use to work as a team. They enjoyed nursing and got a lot of reward from being a nurse.

Besides all this you have everything on a computer. Using passwords, fingerprints and such to go get a patient a box of kneenex or a roll of tape. It is insane because you end up fighting with the machines all night and spend more time on that than actually caring for the patient.

On top of that I will give you a for example that happened to me just last night. I had a young BSN nurse over me. She actually had another nurse come to start a hard IV. I guess she thought because I was older I was over the hill and could not perform easy task lol. I went down and took a small break gave her and the other new hot shot power tripping nurses a chance to start the IV and when they could not do it I came back up and put a line in the person. It was bad enough I had to show her how to put a pick line and point out the patient was going down the tubes. Nurses just flat out don't respect each other, play passive aggressive games and whisper far too much behind each others back.

I am only 49 years old and you would think I am a dinosaur; all the other nurses are right out of school hospitals are over working nurses and they leave for green pastures or just go back to school and do something else. Retention use to be there and there were all age nurses working.

Just my 2 cents worth

Miss Old HaHa