Nursing, Not For Everyone, Not For Most People
Written: Jun 29 '00 (Updated Jan 04 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Ultimately Fulfilling, Satisfying, Above Average Pay, Experience Opens up multiple career options (Travel Nursing, etc)
Cons: Backbreaking Work, Expect To Work Shortstaffed, Expect To Be Unappreciated By Employers
The Bottom Line: Nursing is no longer an attractive profession for young women to go into.
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| nursefriendly's Full Review: Nursing Profession |
Updated 01/04/03:
This review has come under a lot of fire since I first published it. It's sole purpose is to shed light on the darker side of the Nursing Profession. The side and the details you won't hear about working as a nurse from Nursing Schools, Guidance Counselors or most nurses themselves (they're only too aware that a shortage of nurses makes their jobs much harder to do).
It's a difficult article to write knowing it will potentially turn people off to nursing, or persuade them to choose another career path.
For all the talk of a nursing shortage, little is said about the fact that many licensed nurses are no longer practicing. The toxic conditions on the floors have driven them out, literally. If every license nurse was working, we'd have plenty of nurses and there would be no shortage. Instead, more nurses are working less or quitting completely.
A common concern among nurses is "Who will take care of us, when we get sick." It's a valid one considering how many nurses are leaving the floors.
I feel it's important and necessary that all sides of the issue be explored. I've no intention of leaving the nursing profession, don't feel I'm burned out. I do intend to open your eyes so you'll know full and well what you're in for.
It's a fact that nursing students on graduation are deciding to leave the profession after only a few months on the job. The abuse they get is simply too much. Imagine after getting through nursing school, only to find it was "much harder" than you imagined to work in Nursing.
It's a fact that seasoned nurses are leaving the floors, burning out, retiring early, and still eating their young.
It's a fact that nurses are badly needed and will offer stable job opportunities for the next two to three decades if you can hack it.
Having said that, please read on:
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Nurses are Licensed Professionals who's practice is regulated by Nurse Practice Acts, and the State Board of Nursing of each State.
Nursing is a profession of caring. The actual practice of Nursing is about something entirely different.
Nursing is no longer an attractive profession for young women (historically the largest segment of the population entering Nursing) to go into. It is having difficulty competing with corporate and other service industries that offer better working conditions, higher pay, no weekends/holidays, more prestige and much less stress.
It's a given that as a nurse, you're on a daily basis exposed to hostile families and patients, deadly diseases, abuse from doctors, families and other nurses.
This is unfortunate when a simple fact is true. When Nursing Staff in hospitals and Nursing homes are not adequate, patients get sicker and your family members die needlessly. The worse our working conditions get, the less time we'll spend on the floors, the less nurses there will be to care for you and your family members.
Paying Nursing salaries makes up one of the single largest "line items" in a hospital's budget. It is an item they cannot do without. Without nurses, hospitals shut down. Period, end of story. Entire hospital units are shut down, surgeries are delayed, Emergency Departments are put on "Divert" when Nurses cannot be found to work.
Why then, are nurses clearly expendable in the eyes of those that employ them? It feels like we're resources to be used and abused till we’re no longer able to work. At that point, we’re simply tossed into the trash and forgotten. Once a nurse becomes disabled due to back injury (the most common injury due to lifting/moving patients (often without help)), age or illness, their bedside Nursing career is over.
A lucky few may be able to transfer their nursing skills to Case Management, Legal Nurse Consulting, Managed Care and related fields.
It's a profession that's long since been twisted and manipulated to the financial needs of insurance companies, managed care and hospital administrators looking to milk and stretch and get the maximum amount of return from nurses for the least bit of pay.
I've been a nurse for over four years and worked in a variety of settings. My initial training was on a Medical/Surgical/Telemetry floor caring for acutely ill patients with a generous dose of patients in for Cardiac concerns. Since moving on from that environment, I’ve done Home Health, Nursing Home and continue to do Hospital Nursing through agencies.
Regardless of the facility or type of environment, the same concerns are clearly visible.
Too many patients, too little Nursing time to give them the care they need.
Insurance companies simply don’t care that a patient may be too ill to go home, they’re only concerned with the cost to keep them in the hospital.
Nurses are burning out from overwork and there is no one to take their place or give them relief. Nursing is a 24 hour, round the clock obligation, someone has to be looking after the patients.
This has two effects on the two types of Nurses most likely to enter the profession.
1. Those who enter the field because they love the work and caring for people. These often are family members who have seen the care that was given to their loved ones and want to provide the same type of care to others, they inevitably burn out:
* These nurses are frustrated by their inability to give their patients the care they deserve.
* They see their sick patients going home before they are fully recovered (insurance companies will only pay for so many days). It is usually very clear to nurses which patients will be returning for exactly the same ailment due to their early release.
* They are often given more patients to care for than they can safely handle and asked to work extra shifts and overtime despite already being tired and having family obligations.
* They do not have time to “teach” the patients they are discharging (or family members) how to care for themselves at home. Many problems could be alleviated or minimized with proper patient teaching of warning signs or medication usage. However, time for teaching is not factored into our patient loads.
* Realizing the futility of their situation, these nurses may do the minimum needed to get through a shift. In the end, it’s the patient that suffers.
2. Those who enter Nursing because it’s lucrative and in most places high paying, they often burn out, leave or move on:
* These nurses often become overwhelmed by the amount of work that’s involved in providing adequate patient care. It’s a profession that requires you to “get your hands dirty.” A good comparison for nursing is plumbing. It’s a trade that pays well and requires hard labor and skills. It also requires you to kneel down and reach into places that the average person would balk at.
* They see Nursing as a career “stepping stone” that will open doors to bigger and better opportunities (Nursing does this quite well as you can go far with Acute Care Nursing Experience behind you). In the meantime, knowing that they’ll be leaving eventually, they do not do their best or put forth 100 percent (110 percent is required these days) in caring for their patients.
* It may come as a surprise to some after graduating Nursing school that they’ll “actually have to touch” patients and do direct care. This is especially true of nurses who go through BSN programs hoping to go straight to administrative positions with at best a minimum of bedside skills. These nurses may do the minimum needed to get through a shift. In the end, it’s the patient that suffers.
It's frightening to think of how little time nurses have to spend with their patients assessing their illnesses and providing direct care.
A common slogan among nurses when it comes to patients is “Do you want to talk to the Doctor in charge, or the Nurse who knows what’s going on?
A physician, if their lucky, might spend a max of 10 minutes per day per patient in a hospital. They are also “stretched out” by managed care companies that overload them with patients to care for.
Nurses do slightly better at 10 to 15 minutes per day, the difference is we’re there on the floors with the patients, passing medications and looking in, in case anything does go wrong.
Nurses are responsible for the 24 hour/day monitoring of patients in hospitals. It’s our charge to keep the doctor informed when patients are going downhill or have complications. When a patient is going bad, we are the first to know, not the physician. It is the nurse that must call the physician, inform him/her of the patient’s condition and carry out any orders or treatments.
In short, a hospital cannot function without adequate Nursing staff. To do so means compromising the quality of care patients receive. Many hospitals will deny this fact and flatly refuse to consider Nursing concerns when we raise them about our inability to provide safe care with the resources a facility provides.
As a result, nurses are leaving the bedside in droves. Those that are left, must deal with staffing shortages that mean working extra hours (many hospitals have instituted Mandatory Overtime policies that required already tired Nurses to stay unexpectedly when call outs occur) when it is not safe for them to work and to ignore family, childcare and safety concerns.
Will I stay in the profession? Yes, I went into it because I enjoy giving patient care and know it means the world to the patients safety and well being.
Would I recommend it to others considering the profession? Depends on why they are going into it and how well informed they are about the work.
Typically I recommend that a student work as a Nursing Assistant in either a hospital or Nursing home before considering Nursing School.
This will give them a firsthand look at what Nursing entails and how nurses and the staff in Hospitals and Nursing Homes interact. It is often not a pretty picture.
After seeing things firsthand, many quickly change their mind about going into the profession.
Sincerely,
Andrew Lopez, BS RN
The Nursefriendly National Nursing & Consumer Healthcare Directories
http://www.nursefriendly.com, info@nursefriendly.com, ICQ #6116137, AOL “andypulse2”
867 Dante Court, Mantua New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, (fax) 856-415-9618
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Member: Andrew Lopez, BS RN, Nursefriendly, Inc.
Location: Mantua, New Jersey
Reviews written: 66
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