If all the nursing school suddenly open the door and let more people in, there will be a overflowed. Think about all those software programmers back in the days, lawyers, MBAs. We used to think lawyers and MBAs can make a pretty good living but now there are too many out on the streets.
I'm sure you guys don't want to see the same thing happen in nursing, don't you? DO NOT increase enrollments of nursing schools please. Otherwise, we will all suffer. Graduate 10,000 new nurses each year across the nation would be enough.
If you are in nursing education, tell the dean DO NOT increase the enrollments therwise, we will all be screwed.
Perhaps some of the students who are picking apart the nurses they see fail to see what I see and work with. I see nurses who are "burned out" by working 5 12 hour shifts in a week because there are not enough nurses in the area working. They have hurt backs because not only is the acuity higher than ever but their bodies don't have enough "down" time.
The hospital would cheerfully pay another full time nurse rather than the OT involved with current staffing. I am basically retired and do only the shifts I want. I get called in frequently due to nurse illness or injury.
I wash, wipe, turn and lift everyone who needs it. I also assist people to eat, hold hands, comfort families, assist other nurses, provide a vent for frustrated nurses, provide a smile (even when I have my own issues arising). I do all the work every other nurse does but I don't do it every day.
If every nurse who completed nursing education were to work full time then perhaps we would not have a shortage. I doubt this will happen. If
that does happen then I won't feel so bad about not being able to work more. I love nursing and almost had to give it up due to a broken back. That almost killed me. Not the back-the knowledge that I might never be able to return to my profession. It gave me a new appreciation for nursing, nurses, and our resiliency.
I still believe we need more nurses. From what I have read here lately we also need students who have more understanding of the field they are choosing to enter.
Following an extensive clean up this thread will reopen tomorrow, when it reopens could I appeal to all members to contribute in a way that is not inflammatory and without personal insults. It is possible to have a constructive debate without resorting to personal attacks. You do not have to agree with each other but you can disagree respectfully. I apologise for not PMing those whose posts have been edited or removed but there were so many it would have taken me all night. If you can't find your post then it's been removed. If there is a post you find offensive could I appeal to you to use the report post icon rather than respond directly to the post, that way a moderator can deal with it without the thread becoming derailed further.
The original subject is if there is actually a need to increase the amount of student nurses that are trained in the US.
There have been many opinions expressed, on one side those that want to go to nursing school or who are already training feel that there is a need to increase the amount of nurses who are trained and those that feel there is a nursing shortage and increasing the amount of training available can help deal with this.
The other side feel that maybe we should target retention of those experienced nurses instead, improving working conditions and patient to nurse ratio will encourage the already experienced nurses to stay in the profession and help reduce the burn out rates.
Clearly this is quite a simplistic breakdown of what has been discussed and personally I think it is fantastic that there are so many passionate nurses here to fight thier corner, be it students, new grads, experienced or nurses that are no longer practicing. That passion can help drive nursing practice and the nursing profession.
I will re-open this thread tomorrow and hopefully the discussion can continue then.
If all the nursing school suddenly open the door and let more people in, there will be a overflowed. Think about all those software programmers back in the days, lawyers, MBAs. We used to think lawyers and MBAs can make a pretty good living but now there are too many out on the streets.
I'm sure you guys don't want to see the same thing happen in nursing, don't you? DO NOT increase enrollments of nursing schools please. Otherwise, we will all suffer. Graduate 10,000 new nurses each year across the nation would be enough.
If you are in nursing education, tell the dean DO NOT increase the enrollments therwise, we will all be screwed.
1. Actually until there is a focus on retaining nurses in the profession, controlling enrollment is a non-issue.
There are 500 000 nurses in the US licensed to work as nurses that CHOOSE not to. Approximately 50% of new nurses will leave their first nursing job by their second year, approximately 25% will have done so after their first year, I don't know how many of them actually will stay within the profession. Older nurses are retiring earlier. As long as working conditions continue to deteriorate, as long as health care facilities choose to ignore the problems and focus on creating Disneyland (or the Marriot), and as long a pleasing the customer becomes more important than providing competent and safe care, these exodus trends will only grow worse. This market won't become flooded at this rate.
2. I some areas, there are not enough nursing instructors, therefore in those areas enrollment is already limited.
In some areas of the US, despite the demand for nurses, they do not have the instructors to teach them and competition is fierce to get into a coveted spot within a nursing program. Enrollment is limited by default in these areas. Why be a nursing instructor when you can make more money at the beside. You can't increase training in these areas where there is a shortage of instructors.
3. We are not fine with the amount of nurses we have now, there is a global shortage. 12 years from now the estimated nursing shortage is 285 000, and 17 years from now that shortage is estimated to be 500 000. The demand is going to exceed what will be available.
One of the posts already says the old nurses eat the young nurses or eat each other.
This comment has nothing to do with the topic you posted. IMO nurses are more "eaten" by the way health care is run today than they are by each other.
another poster already commented that a shortage won't necessarily translate into higher wages or better working conditions - and this is absolutely dead on correct!
think about it this way:
if the powers that be can convince the american public that there is a nursing shortage crisis - the public will be more likely to back the government up and allow them to open the border to more foreign nurses, or create short, cheap educational programs that generated low skilled nurse "extenders" to take on a lot of the responsibilities.
also, so long as there is a shortage, you won't be able to provide the best care possible to your patients. baby boomers will be the most influential voting block for the next 3+ decades. if they are unhappy with their care, if nurses are perceived (correctly or incorrectly) as mean, nasty, and incompetent - patients will happily vote for candidates who will hire more "grateful" foreign born nurses. it isn't human nature to stop and say, "maybe my nurse treats me badly because she's under stress and maybe i should go vote to make her working conditions better." people don't empathize when they get bad service from someone - they blame them. if patients aren't getting satisfactory care - and you're the face of that care - you're going to take the blame.
Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care, Gero, dementia.
Want to start by echoing what DusktilDawn stated.
As a gerontologist, I continue to be amazed at how people keep forgetting about/ignoring the aging "bulge" about to hit us. One of the things that is important to remember is that not only is the population aging, there are fewer younger people coming up behind! It used to be that the population by age looked like a pyramid -- lots of young, few old, which meant that there were always more people who were actively in the workforce than those who may be dependent on them. Now it moving towards being more of a square and will likely become an inverted pyramid -- here's an image of what I'm talking about: http://tinyurl.com/634kqj
As I said, the most use of healthcare is in the last year of life. This won't change unless there is a major change in attitudes and behavior around how healthcare is utilized. In other words, even without the retention problem the nursing shortage is real, and lack of capacity to educate and train new nurses is real.
I also wanted to comment on the remark made by someone about the new school that was created at UC Davis. The interesting thing about that school and it's 100 million dollar grant is that it grew out of a med error! To quote:
"After suffering adverse consequences from a medical error, Betty Irene Moore made improving nursing care in her community a priority. As a result, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation established the Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative (BIMNI) in 2003.
By investing $123 million over 10 years, BIMNI seeks to improve the quality of nursing-related patient outcomes in adult acute care hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area-in Alameda, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties-by both helping to develop a larger, more highly skilled workforce and by implementing more effective hospital practices."http://tinyurl.com/6dh83v
Rather than sue the pants off the institution, Betty & Gordon Moore saw the potential of nursing to provide leadership and change in how healthcare is delivered. I know the new school at Davis will have a strong emphasis on leadership -- the new Dean/Associate Vice Chancellor of Nursing, Heather Young was the head of the Hartford Center at OHSU that I am attached to. I have never met a more passionate, inspiring nurse leader. I'm sure that her being at the head of this school will mean leadership will be an emphasis of the programs there.
And that is what we need. Nurses to find their voices and join forces to improve conditions for care. We want better working conditions so that we can provide better care and not loose our valued experienced practitioners. And ain't no one gonna give us that w/o our fighting for it and demanding it.
We owe it to ourselves as professionals -- to ourselves and our patients to make things better.
another poster already commented that a shortage won't necessarily translate into higher wages or better working conditions - and this is absolutely dead on correct!
think about it this way:
if the powers that be can convince the american public that there is a nursing shortage crisis - the public will be more likely to back the government up and allow them to open the border to more foreign nurses, or create short, cheap educational programs that generated low skilled nurse "extenders" to take on a lot of the responsibilities.
also, so long as there is a shortage, you won't be able to provide the best care possible to your patients. baby boomers will be the most influential voting block for the next 3+ decades. if they are unhappy with their care, if nurses are perceived (correctly or incorrectly) as mean, nasty, and incompetent - patients will happily vote for candidates who will hire more "grateful" foreign born nurses. it isn't human nature to stop and say, "maybe my nurse treats me badly because she's under stress and maybe i should go vote to make her working conditions better." people don't empathize when they get bad service from someone - they blame them. if patients aren't getting satisfactory care - and you're the face of that care - you're going to take the blame.
i believe the tptb will push for de-skilling the nursing of the nursing profession and hire essentially cheap labor to take the place of the nurse that they train will themselves. i'm seeing this trend now, hospitals are hiring people to function as nas and training them themselves and not all are necessarily doing a good job in this endeavor. i've worked at 2acute care hospitals in mi and thus far nas do not have to be certified to be hired. i predict that the standards hospitals use to train these people will continue to deteriorate. guess who's responsible to ensure they're doing an adequate job: the nurses. until hospitals are made accountable for their staffing practices, they have no incentive to retain nurses nor any incentive to ensure assistive personelle are trained and educated to much higher standards.
globally there is and will be a nursing shortage, so i believe hiring foreign born nurses will not prove to be the most viable course of action. i disagree with you on this one.
i agree that the baby boomer population will continue to be the most influential voting group for at least the next 2 decades as they have been for the past 3-4 decades. i also agree that patients whether correctly or incorrectly will continue to blame nurses if they are unhappy with their care. you're right, people don't empathize with who they perceive to have received a lack of service from. i think however that they will be more influenced to vote for measures meant to de-skill the nursing profession because that will be what they will be convinced to do.
As a gerontologist, I continue to be amazed at how people keep forgetting about/ignoring the aging "bulge" about to hit us. One of the things that is important to remember is that not only is the population aging, there are fewer younger people coming up behind! It used to be that the population by age looked like a pyramid -- lots of young, few old, which meant that there were always more people who were actively in the workforce than those who may be dependent on them. Now it moving towards being more of a square and will likely become an inverted pyramid -- here's an image of what I'm talking about: http://tinyurl.com/634kqj
As I said, the most use of healthcare is in the last year of life. This won't change unless there is a major change in attitudes and behavior around how healthcare is utilized. In other words, even without the retention problem the nursing shortage is real, and lack of capacity to educate and train new nurses is real.
I also wanted to comment on the remark made by someone about the new school that was created at UC Davis. The interesting thing about that school and it's 100 million dollar grant is that it grew out of a med error! To quote:
"After suffering adverse consequences from a medical error, Betty Irene Moore made improving nursing care in her community a priority. As a result, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation established the Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative (BIMNI) in 2003.
By investing $123 million over 10 years, BIMNI seeks to improve the quality of nursing-related patient outcomes in adult acute care hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area-in Alameda, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties-by both helping to develop a larger, more highly skilled workforce and by implementing more effective hospital practices."http://tinyurl.com/6dh83v
Rather than sue the pants off the institution, Betty & Gordon Moore saw the potential of nursing to provide leadership and change in how healthcare is delivered. I know the new school at Davis will have a strong emphasis on leadership -- the new Dean/Associate Vice Chancellor of Nursing, Heather Young was the head of the Hartford Center at OHSU that I am attached to. I have never met a more passionate, inspiring nurse leader. I'm sure that her being at the head of this school will mean leadership will be an emphasis of the programs there.
And that is what we need. Nurses to find their voices and join forces to improve conditions for care. We want better working conditions so that we can provide better care and not loose our valued experienced practitioners. And ain't no one gonna give us that w/o our fighting for it and demanding it.
We owe it to ourselves as professionals -- to ourselves and our patients to make things better.
Your right. People do seem to forget the direction in which population trends are heading. Also as long as nurses fail to come together in significant numbers as a united front and demand change, it's not going to happen. You're so right about that.
Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care, Gero, dementia.
You know what is so ironic about the whole deskilling of nursing? It wasn't all that long ago that several studies provided empirical evidence that it wasn't the number of bodies on a floor it was the number of nurses. Of course, when they increased the nurses they cut back of support staff so I don't know how far ahead we really are, but dang, the "history repeats itself" cycle just got a whole lot quicker.
rather than respond directly to the post, that way a moderator can deal with it without the thread becoming derailed further.
TopazLover, BSN, RN
1 Article; 728 Posts
Perhaps some of the students who are picking apart the nurses they see fail to see what I see and work with. I see nurses who are "burned out" by working 5 12 hour shifts in a week because there are not enough nurses in the area working. They have hurt backs because not only is the acuity higher than ever but their bodies don't have enough "down" time.
The hospital would cheerfully pay another full time nurse rather than the OT involved with current staffing. I am basically retired and do only the shifts I want. I get called in frequently due to nurse illness or injury.
I wash, wipe, turn and lift everyone who needs it. I also assist people to eat, hold hands, comfort families, assist other nurses, provide a vent for frustrated nurses, provide a smile (even when I have my own issues arising). I do all the work every other nurse does but I don't do it every day.
If every nurse who completed nursing education were to work full time then perhaps we would not have a shortage. I doubt this will happen. If
that does happen then I won't feel so bad about not being able to work more. I love nursing and almost had to give it up due to a broken back. That almost killed me. Not the back-the knowledge that I might never be able to return to my profession. It gave me a new appreciation for nursing, nurses, and our resiliency.
I still believe we need more nurses. From what I have read here lately we also need students who have more understanding of the field they are choosing to enter.