okay, now maybe i'm just young and naive, but could someone please fill me in on why it seems that nurses are being singled out from all the other healthcare professions of being overwork and underpaid? I recently got accpeted into nursing school for the fall and thats when i found this site. after reading numerous posts, im starting to get worried.
it seems that the pay is really low (low $20s) and the hours is hectic. Now, i really love to help people and wanted to become a nurse because i would love to make a difference and its rewarding in that way. however, i would love to buy a house one day and start a family, and i certainly don't want to have a college degree and be struggling. how is it that pharmacists can make about $50 an hour and rad techs start off at about $30 an hour and their job seems to me to be less hectic (i am def. not saying that their jobs aren't important). it seems to be that nurses pay is equivalent to someone who doesn't even go to college (post office worker, truck driver) i just think that nurses work hard, they are in stressful environments, and hey to get a bsn you need about 5 years of school.
i looked up diff sites such as salary.com, and it reports that nurses make about $60 g+ a year. You ask around and everyone (who isn't a nurse) says nurses make good money, nurses are always needed. Yet, I read here, from real people, from real nurses saying that they work long hours, are short staffed, and arent being compensated fairly. i know doctors make the money because they are the one that bring income to the hospitals or whatever, but i highly doubt doctors can work alone without a good nurse helping him.
i'm just really bummed out about my career choice right now
But back to nursing. A lot of us come here to complain because there is virtually no one else who can understand nursing issues and complaints like nurses. Also, we complain about the pay, but I think if all college graduates could get a job in their field making what nurses make they would be thrilled.
That is definately the truth about many college grads would be thrilled with making $20-something a hour. I have a BS degree in human biology which I got thinking I wanted to work in labs doing research and stuff. I have been working in a lab for a little over 2 years and I consider myself lucky to be making $17/hour. I interviewed at many labs that do research & dna studies that required a bachelors and prior lab experience that offered $12/hr!! I realized soon after starting in that field that being a lab rat was not my dream job and luckily will be starting nursing school in August. I certainly think nurses should be paid more but I will not complain about making $20 something a hour when I know what my prior degree paid and know many college grads who are unemployed or working for minimum wage.
But back to nursing. A lot of us come here to complain because there is virtually no one else who can understand nursing issues and complaints like nurses. Also, we complain about the pay, but I think if all college graduates could get a job in their field making what nurses make they would be thrilled.
Agreed on the insular nature of this forum...complaints tend to breed new complaints, and then they take on a life of their own.
My complaint about the pay is the wage compression. No way should new grads be pulling in what it's taken some of us twenty or more years to earn, and in some cases, they're making more. If you go to a new job, you start at a lower pay despite experience, and if you stay where you are, your annual raises don't keep up. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it seems like no matter where I go and how happy I initially am with what I'm making, I find out that people with fewer years of experience and fewer credentials are getting as much or more than I am. The job is important, but darn it, compensation needs to be fair. The average college graduate in another field may start out low, but they fully expect their salary to boom as they gain experience.
There are many people WITHOUT college degrees that make MORE than us. It is a sad truth. And anyone who downgrades that in hopes of not discouraging new nurses is wrong. They should know the truth in order to stand up and make a difference in their profession. Yes I can make a living, but it is a damned hard living (physically & emotionally). It is troubling to know what I deal with on a daily basis and to know that a UPS driver makes the same as me.
Although I'm not a nurse yet, I think you have to love what you do also. So if you're going into nursing for the pay then you may find yourself hating your job. Just my 2 cents.
This is for AnnaN5. Working in a lab for 17 dollars/hr, or... running non stop for 12 hours at a stretch with no lunch and 1 bathroom break, getting yelled at by patients, families & doctors, being held accountable for the lack of equipment availible, the deficiencies in the pharmacy, lab, dietary, and physicians, pushing your 350 pound patients in their 600 pound beds to CT scan, wallowing in poop, blood, vomit, & sputum, exposing yourself to every resistant organism under the sun (and bringing said organisms home to your family), being responsible for catching the most subtle of changes... all for 4 dollars more an hour. Tough choice.
There are many people WITHOUT college degrees that make MORE than us. It is a sad truth. And anyone who downgrades that in hopes of not discouraging new nurses is wrong. They should know the truth in order to stand up and make a difference in their profession. Yes I can make a living, but it is a damned hard living (physically & emotionally). It is troubling to know what I deal with on a daily basis and to know that a UPS driver makes the same as me.
Yea, a new patient I admitted was boasting his 20 yr. old son had just signed on with UPS and would be making $24/hour. I'm making $22.50/hr.
Yeah, you don't seem to ever hear many complaints from rad techs, resp therapists, etc. My sis is a rad tech, she has no complaints, she makes great money...pretty sure it's more than what the nurses make at her hospital. And way less stress. Why didn't I copy her??????????
most Pharmacists have a Masters degree or Doctorate. RN's are 2 year, 3 year, or 4 year degrees.
pharmacists have 2 years of prereqs and the program itself is 4 years (6 years total)
my bsn nursing would take 2 years prereqs and the program is 3 years (5 years total)
pharmacists are important and trusted, but are not nurses?
my point was not to look down on other professions, but to compare it with nursing. i respect any body nomatter what their job, that does an honest day work.
it just sounds unfair to me that not enough people in important places are speaking up and representing nurses. even if money wasn't a factor, nursing is a vey physically and emotionally hard job. how can a nurse do her job right if she is burnt out?
Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.
Just because you have a college degree doesn't mean you will be upper-middle class. There are plenty of highly educated people waiting tables.
Truck drivers' salary *is* comparable to a nurses, and a lot of them make more, and they are worth every penny. Just because it seems like a low skill, low intelligence job quite the opposite is true if one is to be successful as a truck driver.
A pharmacist's job may *seem* easy, (count and shuffle pills all day)
but pharmacists make way more than we do for a reason. Their level of education is much higher than a general BSN. In fact, you can trust a pharmacist more than most any doctor when it comes to understanding medication. And it is no cakewalk to get into pharmacy school, they want the brightest and there is plenty of competition.
But back to nursing. A lot of us come here to complain because there is virtually no one else who can understand nursing issues and complaints like nurses. Also, we complain about the pay, but I think if all college graduates could get a job in their field making what nurses make they would be thrilled.
That is true. Hell, I know people who have master's degrees who would kill to make what I make with my associates degree in Nursing.
Furthermore, I have a prior bachelor's degree, in ART. Before I went back to school, I was working as a cashier making 6.50 an hour.
Sometimes I b**** & moan, too. But I love my job, and am better off than most around me. I am a nursing supervisor in a child/adolescent psych hospital, making $21/hr (very small, low cost mid-west town). Our mental health techs (psych equiv. of an nurse aide) make $7 - $9/hr, and about half of them are master's degree level teachers who cannot find a teaching job. If they did, they would make about $12 per hour in our area. I make over twice the pay, with 1/3 of the education. I obviously cannot complain at all at work!!! It is actually very sad...
Around here, they advertise for teachers' aides. College degree required. They just don't have those nicey widdle education credits. And they're offering a whopping $8/hr. Even CNAs here make more than that.
This is for AnnaN5. Working in a lab for 17 dollars/hr, or... running non stop for 12 hours at a stretch with no lunch and 1 bathroom break, getting yelled at by patients, families & doctors, being held accountable for the lack of equipment availible, the deficiencies in the pharmacy, lab, dietary, and physicians, pushing your 350 pound patients in their 600 pound beds to CT scan, wallowing in poop, blood, vomit, & sputum, exposing yourself to every resistant organism under the sun (and bringing said organisms home to your family), being responsible for catching the most subtle of changes... all for 4 dollars more an hour. Tough choice.
I never said that nursing wasn't hard work but my lab job isn't exactly a walk in the park either. I also hate it so even if I made twice as much doing it, it probably wouldn't make it any better. I work in a lab for the Red Cross dealing with all the donation testing to see who has HIV, hepatitis, syphillis, etc so I know about being splattered in untested, biohazardous blood. My point in my post was I am darn lucky to be making $17/hr, most labs pay BS grads with experience in the low teens. So I guess I would be happy to make $4 more an hour to do something that interests me even if it is harder, more stressful work.
A little off topic but I think its odd how the pay rate for nurses is so different across the country. Even taking into account costs of living some of the pay differences dont make sense. The hospitals in the city I live now pays new grads a base pay of $23/hr but the city I will be moving to for school the hospitals base pay for new grads is $18-19/hr. The cost of living for these two places is pretty much the same and they are only 2 hours from eachother so I guess I don't understand the difference.
AnnaN5
429 Posts
That is definately the truth about many college grads would be thrilled with making $20-something a hour. I have a BS degree in human biology which I got thinking I wanted to work in labs doing research and stuff. I have been working in a lab for a little over 2 years and I consider myself lucky to be making $17/hour. I interviewed at many labs that do research & dna studies that required a bachelors and prior lab experience that offered $12/hr!! I realized soon after starting in that field that being a lab rat was not my dream job and luckily will be starting nursing school in August. I certainly think nurses should be paid more but I will not complain about making $20 something a hour when I know what my prior degree paid and know many college grads who are unemployed or working for minimum wage.