For years we’ve read that the US faces a looming shortage of nurses. Shortfalls in the hundreds of thousands of nurses are routinely predicted. These predictions have been good for nursing schools, which have used the promise of ample employment opportunities to more than double the number of nursing students over the last 10 years, according to CNN.
Yet somehow 43 percent of newly-licensed RNs can’t find jobs within 18 months. Some hospitals and other employers openly discourage new RNs from applying for jobs. That doesn’t sound like a huge shortage, then does it?
But the purveyors of the nursing shortage message have an answer for that. Actually two answers: one for the short term and another for the long term. The near term explanation is that nurses come back into the workforce when the economy is down. Nurses are female and tend to be married to blue collar men who lose their jobs or see their hours reduced when the economy sours, we’re told. Nurses bolster the family finances by going back to work –or they stay working when they were planning on quitting. There’s something to that argument even if it’s a bit simplistic.
The longer term argument is that many nurses are old and will retire soon, just when the wave of baby boomers hits retirement age themselves and needs more nursing care. Don’t worry, the story goes, there will be tons of jobs for nurses in the not-too-distant future. This logic comes through again in CNN’s story:
Demand for health care services is expected to climb as more baby boomers retire and health care reform makes medical care accessible to more people. As older nurses start retiring, economists predict a massive nursing shortage [emphasis mine] will reemerge in the United States.
“We’ve been really worried about the future workforce because we’ve got almost 900,000 nurses over the age of 50 who will probably retire this decade, and we’ll have to replace them,” [economist and nurse Peter] Buerhaus said.
I don’t buy this logic. And I stand by what I wrote almost a year ago in Nursing shortage cheerleaders: There you go again:
My issue with the workforce projections is that they don’t take into account long-term technological change, but simply assume that nurses will be used as they are today. I’ve taken heat for writing that robots will replace a lot of nurse functions over time. People seem to be offended by that notion and have accused me of not having sufficient appreciation for the skills nurses bring.
So let me try a different tack. Think about some of the job categories where demand is being tempered by the availability of substitutes. Here are a few I have in mind that have similar levels of education to nurses:
- Flight engineers. Remember when commercial jets, like the Boeing 727 used to fly with two pilots and a flight engineer? Those planes were replaced by 737s and 757s that use two member flight crews instead.
- Junior lawyers and paralegals. Legal discovery used to take up many billable hours for large cases. Now much of it is being automated
- Actuaries. Insurance companies used to hire tons of them, but their work can be done much more efficiently with computers
I don’t know exactly how the nursing profession is going to evolve but I do notice that the advocates for training more nurses are typically those who run nursing schools rather than prospective employers of nurses, such as hospitals.
If you want to be a nurse, go for it. But if you’re choosing nursing because you think it’s a path to guaranteed employment, think again.
David E. Williams is co-founder of MedPharma Partners LLC, strategy consultant in technology enabled health care services, pharma, biotech, and medical devices. Formerly with BCG and LEK. He writes regularly at Health Business Blog, where this post first appeared.
I find your argument for the fake Nursing Shortage to be a pretty good one. The fact is, that most nurses look to work in hospitals and nursing homes for the steady hours, benefits, etc. The home care industry, which also employs many nurses has its problems due to the reimbursement issue from Insurance companies and Social programs, which only pay for short term visits, i.e. 2 to 3 weeks past discharge. Some states had been putting together programs to keep certain long term patients in their homes with the help of these agencies, but these are also dependent on funding. Areas of nursing that are lacking in specialists are also lacking in education programs. There are many specialties where there are Physician shortages, and these could be assisted by Nurse Practitioners, but there are no education programs for them to go to. So, in one case you are correct, the generic nurse is not going to find work very easily; but with a little research, they may find their niche and hopefully an education program to go to.
Chances are you are not a nurse. Big pharmacy and big hospitals have been claiming nursing is a dying profession.Can you explain to me why nursing is still considered the second future profession? May I suggest you and Mr QIlliams allow a robot to take care of you on your dying days. Pharmacy companies own this country. You support Mr Williams you support big industry.
My money says you are not a Nurse. There are 10 times the amount of nurses needed. It is Absurd.
Here’s an article you may want to read..
http://allnurses.com/first-year-after/new-grads-need-795256.html
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/14/news/economy/nursing-jobs-new-grads/index.html?iid=F_Jump
This is what is REALLY going on out there..
There sure is a shortage of good nurses. There sure is a shortage of nurses who spek out on the errors caused by CPOE systems. There sure are too many complex patients for the reant-a-nurses that inhabit the wards. There sure is a shortage of nurses who know their patients. I bought several Tolstoi novels to read while waiting for nurses to find the information I need to make appropriate decisions on my patients.
“I’ve taken heat for writing that robots will replace a lot of nurse functions over time.”
Yea, and Popular Mechanics has been predicting every dacade or so we’ll all have our own personal flying machine.
“I don’t know exactly how the nursing profession is going to evolve…”
That’s for sure.
I’m with Peter on this one. Take a look at the age distribution of practicing nurses at any level. It has a huge “boomer bulge”. And those boomers have worked overtime without pay both at patients’ sides and feeding their insatiable electronic health records. When they quit, and it could be any day now, expect serious shortages of the unpleasant and underappreciated hospital and nursing home venues that will last for many years. This is an emerging disaster.
The really hard part of nursing will not be automated in our lifetimes. We could alleviate the coming shortage by re-examining all the Mickey Mouse “check the box” documentation requirements we’ve heaped on nurses, and by making the EMR’s truly functional and user friendly.
Oh, thank you for that. “Insatiable electronic health records….” brilliant. They have become my patient. The crying babies in the isolettes only get in the way. Someone should let the hospital administrators/educators know that EMR won’t save any time for bedside caregivers if you add a new tome of ‘checky-box’ forms about every month.
Amen. The emrs are patients now. They are forms designed to make the institution blameless. It becomes mindless clicking.
Electronic charting has done nothing but increase workload for nurses.Hospitals care far more about that electronic check mark than patient care
Also how many robots do you know that can clean stool, urine and get disabled patients out of bed. Waiting with bated breath for that. HAHA. Signed full-time baby Boomer critical care nurse.
I have been hearing that for 10 years..they ‘aint gone yet. These people intend to work until they die..
Nice post
I know plenty of administrators looking for nurses and plenty of new nurses looking for jobs. The problem is the administrators want trained nurses and many young nurses leave the profession after a few years because of the variable hours, physically difficulty responsibilities and un-sexy work. In addition, there are challenges in employment positions due to the unionized model that many states employ. Lastly, but not least – ask any senior nurse (who, @whatsen williams, know their patients, are more than willing to fight physicians, and don’t have a shift mentality) about the quality of the younger generation of nurses and a long discussion will take place about the poor attitude and lack of ownership and responsibility in the latter group.
That being said – several truths here – (1) many nurses have gone back to work or are working till an older age due to the shitty state of the economy (2) as the demand on the system increases, there will be a greater need of non-MD practitioners (NP, PA, RN, etc) (3) as costs have to be managed better, much of the rote work will be assigned to the non-MD practitioners to more efficiently manage expensive resources.
I can tell there are alot of Non-nurses chiming in here. First of all, the industry is moving rapidly toward using nurses from the Pacific rim. Their bedside manor sucks, their skills are not that great, and you cannot even understand many of them…but they work CHEAP. THAT is the trend in the industry.
There is not, nor has there been for the last 7 years, a nursing shortage. There was a short shortage for about a year in 2006, but literally hundreds of private nursing schools sprang up, and the gap was quickly filled..but these schools didn’t want to close, so we get the “Shortage” myth, year after year. What there IS a shortage of is foreign nurses willing to work for nothing. My hospital just completed a recruiting trip from the Philipines, even though we have at least 2500 apps on file for RN’s.
The truth is far simpler than all the non-nurses here analyze it to be. Hospitals are looking to hire cheap nurses ONLY. Less than 8% of new-grad RN’s find work within 18 months..that’s a year and a half!
It is time TO TELL IT LIKE IT IS! Nurses let their own profession drive TRUCKS over them. Then when they speak up it is with a nursing union that winds up stabbing them in the back! WHY are nurses so spineless. So fearful of retaliation and retribution so they say and do nothing, to advocate for themselves?! It is ridiculous. In a newly released book that addresses “Toxic Nursing:…” a “controversial” recommendation was made to resolve the problems with nursing. The resolution offered was to higher more men!
The CNA is possibly the worst union that ever was..
Be wary of analysts bearing “myths.” Pretty much any time you see the word “myth” in the title of a post, you’re pretty much assured you are reading a political statement, not objective analysis.
Nobody, except maybe some unscrupulous admission reps from nursing schools, continues to perpetuate the nursing shortage myth, so this article is pretty pointless. If we want to speculate about the future of nursing, that would be interesting. It seems nurses have always been their own worse enemy and that continues today. Unlike teachers with their unions or physicians with the AMA nurses they have no singular voice or leverage and are therefore subject to market forces. In fact, the most significant publication regarding, and titled, the future of nursing was written by the IOM. The entry bar to be an RN has to be set the same as PT, at the Masters level, not the current Associates to break the shortage/glut cycle, to advance the profession and improve the healthcare system.
I believe the PT can begin practice at the Baccalaureate level also. But really, what would masters trained nurses do at the bedside. I worked with a girl who had her masters as a clinical specialist. She worked just as I did. Think of the frustration of someone highly trained to yet not being able to use that training in the way she/he was educated to do. Nursing does have to change, but no one has the answers, its a difficult issue to talk about. Many Nurses are very frustrated with the system but just see the job as a means to a paycheck. When Nurses can only do what the Physician orders, there can be no change.
Bullsh*t. This myth is told daily by nursing school recruiters. Let me guess…you would NOT be a nurse, yes?
Thats great.. nice post David thanks.
The nursing shortage IS a myth. Look at the amount of inactive licenses? There ARE plenty of nurses yet the universities continue to perpetuate the “need” for nurses. The universities r making loads of money off of these poor kids. They get into debt right before they graduate to only become indentured servants to a hospital/loans. Then when they get out there thinking therell be “all these jobs”. They find there is no one there to take them on. Loads of debt and fake promiises of jjobs in healthcare? What a horrid lie. And even further yet they do not see the whole picture of why there r all these jobs in healthcare. Harassment – horizontal violence among the nurses/docsnurses – hospitals dont wish to train while paying for two nurses (preceptorships). And colleges keep pushing higher and higher degrees where you get the myth that youll make more cash if you are an NP or a so called doctorate in nursing. You still dont make much. For all the responsibility there is. There really are not all kinds of jobs out there. Its such a myth. And universities keep perpetuating it. Why are ther disproportionately more new grads in nursing than other professions? How sad. Where are all the jobs in this modern america. How awful.
PA, NP, RT, RN..they are all FULL. My hospital hasn’t hired anything higher than a (non-benefited) CNA in the last 20 months..
Btw look at how the private colleges seem to exploit this myth? They build and build and chaneg their college names from college to university to make it look as though they have more “clout/competitiveness”. Theyre using the nursing shortage myth. Other professionsr. Not really there anymore but “nursing” is there! And yet there is NOTHING available in nursing. Its bad too for the kid coming out of school w dreams of being a nurse being shattered b/c the reality is there are NO jobs in nursing. Hospitals are going belly up too. So why would they be hiring? Hospitals fold up. And the fact new nurses want to put their years worth of time in the hospital and get out? And of course hiring freezes which happen ever so frequently in hospitals. What a sad state the nursing profession is in these days.
What is really the stinker in this whole thing.. is that most places won’t even hire an RN anymore.. they prefer BSN… a BSN for bedside nuring when their BSN schooling is based on managment skills.. I want to be a nurse to nurse.. not to manage.. but to get an entry level employment with a BSN stinks.. and if one gets hired as an LPN at some hospitals they do CNA work and not allowed to even pass meds.. Why did we all go to nursing school to become LPN’s, or RN’s when no one will hire us.. on another level they say that being a Medical Assistant is the way to go because most doctors offices hire MA’s .. that is phooey too.. Having an assoiciates in Medical Assisting and not finding a job after 3 years of looking I decided to go for my RN .. Here’s Hoping there is a position in my future..
RN’s are no better, and probably worse. My hospital hasn’t hired an RN in 20 months..that is almost 2 years! You shouldn’t have to “Hope” when so much time and money is invested..Bottom line, no matter how much you want to be in it, the health care field is, for the moment, closed; and not just RN’s. LPN’s are gone for the most part, as everyone is an RN/BSN. In my state, over half of the nursing licenses are inactive.
My advice is to do what no one on these boards has done. Talk to a WORKING nurse that works in a hospital(ER, Med Surge, ICU, etc) and ask if they have seen any new hires around for the last few YEARS, and what the job climate is. Blindly going to school on the hope it MAY lend you a better job is foolish, don’t you think? (8 years as a trauma nurse and flight nurse..and working) Bottom line, we can’t ALL be nurses. I got in at the right time. You did not. I would give it some VERY deep thought..
What I have found, in my 27 years of nursing, is that hospitals will understaff nurses on units and then say those units have no vacancies. This causes delay in care by having to send patients to other hospitals for treatment. All an administration scam to “save” from paying nurses. So there has never been a shortage of nurses, This burns me because it limits nurses ability to have a secure job in acute care setting, make advancement in ranks and have selfworth in becoming a nurse.
There is no support for this opinion piece. The nursing shortage is not something that is “made up” by nursing schools. It has been recognized by the Institute of Medicine as something that represents a serious concern in the future (Zimm, Guglielmi, Davis, & Moses, 2012). As of right now, I am a nurse, a nurse educator, and an attorney. I have plenty of offers for staff nursing jobs, and the students with whom I have worked who have graduated recently have been able to find gainful employment. There is an issue with proper training of nurses, and employers are often remiss to invest in training. They’d rather spend the money on experienced nurses. Those organizations who have recognized the value in hiring new nurses, and providing adequate training are the ones who will reap the benefits in the future.
Zinn, J., Guglielmi, C., Davis, & Moses,
My post went before I finished the citation …
Zinn, J., Guglielmi, C., Davis, P., and Moses, C. (2012). Addressing the nursing shortage: the need for nurse residency programs, AORN Journal, 96(6), 652-657
We must be living on different planets. In my world, there are 6 nurses for every available job, LPN/LVN’s are pretty much gone, there are HUNDREDS of apps for every opening(which is always filled from inside)
Let me guess..you work for a nursing school, yes?
Lucky you. My nursing school (Astate, not a private school) placed less than 8% within a YEAR of graduation. This is about average, from what I understand
I don’t know where you live, but out in my neck of the woods hospitals haven’t been hiring nurses for years. The nursing shortage is real, don’t I wish. Let me guess….you would NOT be a working nurse?
@Tara, thanks for that interesting post. I spoke recently with someone about Nursing as it is. I began my nursing career back in the ’80′s when we actually did bedside nursing. I recently visited the same hospital and the only thing the nurses appeared to be doing was giving out medication. Could be a staffing thing, nursing assistants are cheaper to use for daily care, but the Nursing staff looked overwhelmed, harried, and intent on getting out their meds and finishing their notes. That was a med-surg floor. I personally had gone from M/S, to CCU/ICU, and then High Risk L&D. My experience as a nurse was much different from what I saw. I would not go back to patient care now for anything. My interests have changed and the workload now is just to high.
I work Trauma/Flight. I wouldn’t work a M/S unit for all the tea in China. We call these “Bathroom” units, as your day is spent helping seniors go to the toilet
Your attitude is what is wrong with nursing. As a intensive care nurse for 30 yrs. I can tell you I have the greatest respect for Med surgery nurses. I do not even understand any of your posts. If you are a nurse which I really doubt I suggest you walk into a large hospital today and view how hard nurses work on any type of unit. It is not about degrees as I have an advanced degree.
First of all, I work Part Time in a level 1 Trauma center in a very large hospital.(most CFRN’s do) I am sorry you don’t like my career path.1 shift a week. I DO go up to other units..And No, my attitude is NOT what is wrong with Nursing. What is wrong with nursing is 1) Hospitals are refusing to hire new grads, but send recruiters over to the Pacific Rim, looking for cheap Nurses, sending infection rates soaring, and satisfaction plummeting and 2) The Nursing field is SATURATED. My state, California, has 8 times as many RN’s than are needed. As long as the private Nursing schools continue hyping the “Nursing Shortage” myth, it will continue. Throw in the new fad of “Doctor owned Hospitals” and I am slowly watching the field go from white collar to Blue collar, in front of my eyes..About my attitude..until YOU can cut a chest tube in a darkened, moving chopper…
As far as J Thompson goes – don’t waste your time. As we know, either of us can be trained to do “stuff” to people. (e.g., put in a chest tube in a moving helicopter, etc) … I can train to be a flight nurse – as I was a trauma nurse before I went to med-surg, but there is no way he could ever do my job (especially not the one I have teaching new nurses) – or yours. Our jobs require compassion and understanding for all people, not just a set of skills to be performed on them. I agree, the foul attitude and hyper-inflated unjustified ego is the issue there.
Well stated J Thompson!
according to bureau of labor statistics, there will be 700,000 more nursing jobs by year 2020 in the United States
And if you believe that…
Sure, 700,000 more jobs…on paper. Just like my hospital says ” you will have one nurse for every four patients” and I have 6-9 in the ER. Positions are “open” and many people apply, and their application goes into a black hole. So Yes, there will be more ‘nursing jobs’ but will hospitals be able to afford them? Probably not! Only be a nurse is you want to be a nurse!
Geographic area has to be taken into account when discussing trends in any profession. There are particular areas of the US that will feel the shift in population age more than others (Florida comes to mind).
Anyone who suggests any significant portion of nursing can be replaced with robots has no idea (or no appreciation) for what good nurses do. But maybe you’re right; maybe we will be replaced. I hope I don’t have to be a patient in that hospital. On the upside, I could probably get a mani-pedi while having a knee replacement if we didn’t have to be bothered with all that pesky human limitation stuff.
I am fortunate to live in an area (admittedly relatively rural) where nurses are valued and respected, and where new nurses are educated and encouraged. (Some of you are probably wondering if we have unicorns, too.)
As to the entry level degree comments: this has been debated for decades. The fact is, that until nursing ups the ante on entry level requirements, it will continue to have difficulty holding an equal place at the health care table with other professions that have committed to master’s and higher education. If I’m in a meeting with a physician, a pharmacist, and a physical therapist, I am likely in a meeting with the equivalent of 3 PhDs. Bedside experience only goes so far.
To put this in context, I have been a bedside nurse, mostly in ICU, for over 20 years. I earned my BSN last year and I’m finishing my MSN in the next few months and, boy, have my eyes been opened. I used to believe a degree didn’t make much of a difference. Once I started really reading about the inequalities of education between professions, I knew I needed to go back to school. I just didn’t know what I didn’t know.
And one last thing before I get back to my homework – if your EMR is getting between you and your patient, it hasn’t been properly designed. I’ve recently become a full-time Informatics nurse (after several part-time years) and at the top of my priority list is making sure our clinical documentation flows for our staff; each discipline is involved in developing the documentation for their area. It’s pretty sad when facilities implement EMRs poorly and then expect exceptional productivity and outcomes from their staff. It usually means someone made decisions from on high when information should have come from the masses.
We will be replaced all right, but not by robots..by cheap Asian Nurses
The problem is that, for example, the California Board of Registered Nursing has a long standing requirement that in order to take the NCLEX exam students MUST HAVE CONCURRENT nursing education. All of the Philippine nurses that came to the USA did not have this education!!!! The California BRN over looked this and still permitted the Filipino nurse to take the NCLEX and have and KEEP a RN license in CALIFORNIA. The CA BRN just started to enforce their own rule in 2012! There are many foreign educated RN’s in California that have a RN license and do not meet the education requirements, there were just over looked and now NEW GRAD RN’s that have broken their behinds to meet all of the requirements cannot get jobs! MANY of the Filipino nurses came to the US, and their clinical rotations were actually done when they WORKED as RN’s. Spoke in their native tongue with their peers to hide their lack of knowledge, and learned as they went. But hospitals say they don’t want new grad RN’s….
They Dont want AMERICAN new Grads. They want cheap Asian new grads. Americans want….MONEY
The foreign nurses are getting paid! Don’t fool yourself! I was on an interview for a RN position and while answering the managers questions briefly, correctly, and succinctly, the Asian Asst Manager fell asleep! AND I DIDN’T get the JOB! Any working nurse is getting paid more than me…
Aconite
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatornation
Shortage should probably be broken down between those who have a 4 year nursing degree and those who don’t.
Not until the workload is broken down between two, three (there are a few left, though they’re an aging population) and four year nurses. Otherwise, the only real difference is when it comes down to a working knowledge of Chaucer. (And I say that as a ridiculously overeducated former RN.)
The nurse who left me most thoroughly and completely in the dust was an LPN-II with beaucoup years’ experience. This is one area where I think OJT really is useful– even necessary. I’d be all in favor of mandatory internships. I think it would stem the burn-out rate, as well.
Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/work-employment/1370377-there-really-nursing-shortage-4.html#ixzz2NvjB09hz
@J Thompson. Well, I disagree with you on the point of there not being enough jobs for nurses. I do teach for a college, but am not part of their advertisement committee. I help my students get jobs, and explain to them how to do so. It is not sufficient to file an app, and then sit around and wait for someone to call you. Another issue is that not all students are meant to be nurses. Until we find a better way to do admissions, there are students who will likely not get hired because their personalities aren’t exactly the best fit. There are plenty who work now like that who I wish would make room for the good ones coming up.
As for your comments about med-surg. I am a med-surg nurse, and I am glad you are not. I wouldn’t want someone with your particular view caring for my family when they need to use the toilet, and I wish you a good nurse when you are elderly and in need of using the toilet.
That is why I work Trauma/Flight, and you work M/S. Different skillset. And, bottom line, if you teach, you know very well there are NO jobs out there right now. Not for Nurses, Not for Respritory, Not for Rad Tech..nothing short of physician.
And how do you “Help” your students get jobs? While you say it is not sufficient to “fill out and app and wait” what else should they do? Go to HR(which many hospitals have gotten rid of, anyway) and sit in the lobby? They can’t work registry, so what, exactly, do you do?
Finally, you are correct, I would be an AWFUL Med-Surg Nurse. Every M/S Nurse I know HATES IT(except you, apparently) and is DYING to move to ICU, ER..anything but M/S. If you are a good Bum-Cleaner, then, by all means, you are where you should be. I work outdoors, in boots, not white sneakers, at the SCENE. I could do your job…could you do mine?
And as for new nurses getting hired in my area (outside of DC). INOVA is actively hiring new nurses in my area, as does Johns Hopkins, PG Hospital, Washington Hospital Center, Virginia Hospital Center, Potomac Hospital, and those are just a few … Yes, RN is definitely required to work in a hospital, and I support that. We are moving to required BSN and I support that too. It does make a difference. And it’s a great move for our profession. It needs to be taken seriously, and to be respected. Our new educational initiatives help.
As A BSN, I agree. But something must be done about H1-B Visas and imported Nurses. Besides doing nothing but leaving Americans unemployed, at our hospital, at least, there are always complaints about poor bedside manner, speaking a foreign language in the halls(which alarms some patients), not being “team Players”, to say nothing of the rising rates of infections, etc.
I say get all AMERICAN BSN’s employed FIRST, then, the RN’s..the recruit overseas.
Are you sure Hopkins is hiring, or just ADVERTIZING they are hiring.? And New Grads? Big difference between hiring and advertizing you are hiring. If you look at our website, we have 50+ openings for RN’s.
We haven’t hired a nurses in more than a year.
Bottom line, In California, we have 172,000 licensed RN’s, over 1/2 are inactive without ever being employed. The state needs fewer than 23,500 RN’s to run everything. All the Hospitals, Care facilities, everything.
What do you suggest in terms of stopping the H1-B Visas? Make a plan, start an initiative, and work towards some type of legislation. In my region we don’t have an issue with that. Yes, Hopkins is actually hiring. I currently work at one of their hospitals PRN, and we have three new grads on our floor right now who weren’t even there when I worked two months ago. Also, we hired at least three other new grads over the past year.
I am a clinical instructor only, so in terms of how I help students with job seeking, I make sure they make connections with unit managers on the floors where we really have good relationships with the staff during our rotations. I encourage them to apply to PCT positions. Most places we go pretty much guarantee that they’ll stay on as nurses after they graduate. I had two students in my last group of 4 clinical students apply for jobs during my last rotation. Both were hired. That was at a non-Hopkins facility. One student needed to be encouraged to follow up with applications, etc … But the main thing is that people really need to be proactive.
Now, I am also a lawyer … If you want to talk about a poor job market, I can talk to you about that one! Thank heavens I’m a nurse!
Best,
Tara
3 new grads over the past 2 months, and 3 other new grads a year ago. That says it all. 6 new grad jobs in one year. Sounds like the nursing shortage is a myth to me!! WHY are you encouraging new grad RN’s to take patient care tech or nursing assistant jobs when they are RN’s? Obviously you are protecting your paycheck as a nursing instructor because the scant new grad RN jobs that you express are available as a positive, doesn’t support the churning out of new grad RN’s consistently through the nursing programs that are NOT necessary!
6 new grads on ONE UNIT in one year. Our unit has a fairly high retention rate. It’s a 21 bed unit. So 6 new grads out of a total of 15 or so nurses on the unit is not too bad.
And I do not have new RN grads working as PCTs. These are nursing students who want to work while in school. They gain experience and stay on to work as RNs. Just like I did when I was in school. Our RN grads get RN jobs.
It is kind of obvious to me why you are not currently employed. See above about how some simply will not get hired due to personality issues. Nursing is a caring profession, not a means to an easy paycheck.
Here’s the Irony..I am STARTING law school in August. No lie…at least in California, there are no Nursing jobs, and that’s real. I know many folks from ’09,’10 and ’11 students that have not found work, even at SNF’s. I firmly believe my class(07_ was the last that actually had any chance of finding work.
That is one of the reasons I am leaving the field-the quality of nurses has dropped so fast, so far it boggles the mind; and manning ER’s with Nurses that don’t have the same training, competence and langauge and communication skills as those that are trained here is insane.
To get my Job, I had to work on a 911 ambulance, then work in an ER, get my paramedics, get my BSN(all while working ER) work as an ER BSN for 4 years, and then get on Helo’s. These nurses they have now have virtually no experience at all, and those that due, are not familiar with our equipment, etc..Cost has overcome patient care.
You truly are doing a diservice, however, by encouraging nursing right now. It is a closed field at the moment. You must know that, especially considering, as you say, you have been at it for 30 years. You haven’t noticed the quality of new nurses dropping, the chronic understaffing, the shorter the breaks, etc..seriously?
Damn..where do you work and do they have a flight program?
Sorry about the typos..trying Dragon speak to type.
My name is Jason, BTW..Nice to meet you
Hey Jason,
We have a ton of jobs here in the DC area. I am certainly not doing a disservice by encouraging students. I’m not sure who said 30 years. Not me … I’ve been a nurse for nine. I went to law school to do policy work, which I may eventually do. But I’m not making it up. In our area, students get jobs. I care about what my students are experiencing. And I don’t sugar coat the reality of what working in our field is really like. I also encourage them to think past the bedside. I am a nurse not because I needed a job to do something, but because people and healthcare are important. We still need people with high morals to come into the profession.
If you want to talk about what types of schools have problems with encouraging enrollment. Law schools have some serious issues now. I went to law school in Florida, and while I had a job in Florida, I chose to move to DC because I needed a change and wanted to do policy work. I can work 24/7 here as a nurse if I wanted to, but I’ve been licensed as an attorney in Virginia for 3 years this October. No job. And not even any prospects.
You will hear … nursing and law? What a great combination. But they will not want to pay you. Also my friend graduated from law school in California in 2008. Still no job. She teaches criminal justice classes at ITT.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-06-22/business/ct-biz-0622-chicago-law-20120622_1_law-school-law-placement-job-market
Most lawyers even in this area are doing doc review work(the kind mentioned in the article) for less than they make as nurses. And you might think you’ll make money as an LNC, but law school won’t help you any more than what you could do right now.
The legal field is the worst market ever right now. If you have a free ride through law school … go. It’s an awesome experience. But if you have to pay. Think twice. Or maybe more than twice.
Hey Tara..
I am answering to your post below..it just won’t let me comment there. About the legal field-I know, but I have an “in”(half my family are attorneys and are counting the seconds until “1 more of us” passes the bar.
I know Hopkins has a flight program, one of the best. I applied for Vanderbilt Lifeflight, the best program in the country, but so did about 5,000 others, from what I understand.
I didn’t know Hopkins was hiring. I work on the MOTOGP(The motorcycle equivelant of Formula one cars) safety team, and your former head of Nuerology, Dr. Jonathan Wisse, is our head Nuerologist.
If Hopkins is hiring new grads, that amazes me. Maybe the market is just different here.
Yes, I would have NEVER attended Law School if it weren’t for ‘Good ‘ol Nepotism. (Really nothing to be proud of, but recessions sometimes make people re-asses their life rules, such as never working for a relative)
I have letters of Acceptance from USC, NYU and Boston College(irony). I have been hearing law students are actually suing their law schools because they can’t get jobs. Hell, our BEST placement school, places 60% of their students within a year. Most are in the 30′s. Better than nursing schools, out here anyway.
Shoot me a link if you can to hopkins flight department or hr..
See Ya
Jason
I always wonder about these jobs posted too. I apply to these jobs and never hear back, it’s like they don’t existed and are only posted to fulfill the quota they must show for being “not for profit” institution.
Nursing field is a mess. Administrations change the rules in order to get their money off being cheap by not staffing hospitals adequately. Possibly the bsn makes difference. There r lpns who know more about nursing than bsn rns. And yet the lpns r demoted to cna status. Quite a nasty slap in the face to lpns whove been working as bedside nurses -were and being quite effective ones at that.
Nursing profession is a joke nowadays. Patients suffer due to administrations cost cutting tactics. Many overeducated rns out there and still many inactive rn licenses and too many unemployed qualified rns to fill the so called nursing shortage. There are no jobs in nursing. There is no shortage in the nursing field
I have student loans that won’t be paid because I CAN’T OBTAIN EMPLOYMENT!!!! I was an LVN, have been a RN and have not worked as one in direct patient care since I have been licensed!! This is a crisis of NO RN JOBS! FALSE NURSING SHORTAGE! Paying nursing “educators” for NEW RN’s that aren’t needed!
I also have a BSN, and am inducted to the International Honor Society of Nusing (Sigma Theta Tau) and NO JOB!
Bottom line, man. There are 2 ways, and only 2 ways to get hired these days. 1) GET ON STAFF SOMEWHERE. Anything..CNA. Anything. Work there for a year or so and bust your behind and start talking to department heads, lead nurses, etc. or 2) Nepotism. You have a relative, Friend, etc. that can get you on. That’s about it. Sure, there are the occasional people that just click during clinicals with someone and get hired on, but that is RARE.
Filling out an app online does nothing, except waste your time.(You probably already know that one)
I started on an ambulance(as an EMT), got my paramedics, worked 911 for a year, got on as an ER tech, then, when I graduated, got hired as an RN in the ER, then moved on to flight after a few years. That was in 2007. I doubt you can do that anymore, as Paramedics are a dime a dozen now, too.
Agreed. Network like any job! You can’t just have a degree, apply, and get it! Nursing is a profession like all the others. Volunteer, work crappy (literally) jobs, babysit for the doctors, work your ass off for that career you have always wanted!
Isn’t the issue really that hospitals understaff? I was told this by a doctor when choosing where to have my baby–I was going to go the premier hospital in my city and he told me they had cut back on their nursing (and other) staff to fund a large expansion, and recommended a smaller hospital that had the same capabilities but a better staffing ratio. I don’t think this info is available to the general public.
I graduated in 2006 and 90% of my classmates were Filippino, with a large number of Filippino males. We were all “brainwashed” into thinking that there’s a nursing shortage. The local hospital came to us to offer us jobs in many fields, even before we graduated. We all thought this is was great and things looked so promising. Well, later in the same year, many of my collegues were laid off in the med-surg. Only us in the specialities were spared.
My happiness as a nurse was shattered in Dec. 2009 when I was fired for unfair reasons. It was a conspiracy against me by the other nurses. One non-Filippino girl was forced to quit (and she was a really good nurse), and I was the last one left. All kinds of lies were written up against me and they failed me on several evalations. They then took me off the night shift, threw me onto the day shift and forced me to become charge nurse to see how I would function. After they figured out I was “incompetent” they fired me.
The Union wanted to fight for me, but I was in such a deep depression, I didn’t want to even go outside. I ignored their calls, their letters. Now it’s 2013 and I look back and wished I had enough courage and strength that time to fight back.
In 2011, I got hired as a per diem to work in a clinic. I thought wow, this is great and now I have a chance to rebuild my career. I was grateful for any job. Unemployment had run out, but what I failed to do was go back to college to earn the BSN. I had at least one and a half years of UE coverage, but due to my depression, I couldn’t even go outside.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, and after being praised for my hard work at the clinic, work was not offered to me, and again I had to go on unemployment last summer, but it ran out in October. I have been looking for another job for almost a year now, and because I only have limited experience and no adult med surg exp, no one will hire me. I’m also stuck because I only have an ADN.
I must say that I really and honestly feel that I have chosen the wrong profession. It has left me totally unsatisified, no stable employment, much heartache, depression, and grief. Interview after interview and no job. I am considering choosing a different career now, but one thing I do agree with is that the nursing shortage is a MYTH. The ones retiring are those who have worked their way up in to management positions; you need experience to get that kind of job, and also many healthcare companies are not willing to train, stating new grads no need to apply.
Maybe getting your BSN or MSN might help, but there’s no guarantees, as one has already stated in this blog. 3 years and no one will hire here. Amazing, huh? So, spare yourself the trouble and choose a different career is my advice.
Although I am employed and love what I do, I see the writing on the wall..Start Grad school in August(law, not nursing)
Nursing has been good to me, but I honestly think that my class, 2007, was the last class that had a chance. Signing bonuses, department choice,
moving pay, it was all there, and no one wanted the problems associated with Pacific Nurses.
Now it is much different. Bedside manner, infection control and patient comfort have given way to the almighty dollar. As I stated in another post, American trained nurses are no-go, but many hospitals are actively recruiting from the Pacific rim Countries.
One thing, though. The LVN/LPN is dying. Some work Psyc, but most are already gone in hospitals
Yah tell me how that is with all those recruits running a trauma code!? Scary right! Your co workers are supposed to be your backbone!
Well, I cannot say finding a job in nursing is impossible, and I’m not trying to discourage anyone seeking a nursing career, however, the problem is very real and it needs to be taken seriously. Take a look at the article from CNN Money. Many new RN grads tell their story:
http://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2013/01/14/nursing-jobs-grads/index.html