<p>I never associated union membership with job dissatisfaction. I see it more as a protection, similar to a contract.</p>
<p>Mominva, I totally agree with you regarding a few years’ experience before going on to grad school. To think that a new grad can either get much from or give much back by immediately immersing in a Master’s program is silly.
I’m a nurse with over 35 years of experience and I can’t tell you how glad I am that I graduated when I did. I had my pick of positions in NYC with excellent benefits, housing, tuition, everything!
I actually went for my MSN because I couldn’t turn down an absolutely free ride. Am certainly glad I did but It took quite a while to do.
I also totally agree with vabluebird regarding the variety of work you can do as an RN. I’ve have PACU, ICU, outpatient and general med experience. I now do school nursing and teach in an RN to BSN program. I’ve also picked up some expert witness work along the way. Very different work but I still find it difficult to take a lunch break or use the bathroom.
I been a union employee and a non-union employee. I preferred the job that did not have the union… but just because it was a better job.</p>
<p>Also, I feel that hospitals do not hire inexperienced new grads because the training is expensive and the nurse may leave after they get their year in. In addition, it’s cheaper to pay overtime to an experienced nurse (who is underpaid to begin with) than to train a new grad.</p>
<p>Yes Woody, in our day we worked as nurses before heading to grad school; now the 2nd degree (bachelors in non-nursing) gets BSN/MSN in one process. I’ve also done union and not. I prefer union only because I have seen dismissals on really questionable grounds - personality conflicts.</p>
<p>Agree that union membership is independent of disliking/liking working conditions.</p>
<p>Decades ago when I was a resident (woman physician here) one hospital had the 3 12 hour ICU shifts that was full time, paid like the 40 hour shifts elsewhere in the hospital. The nurses liked it because they would be spending more than an 8 hour shift many times and working 3 days of ICU with 4 off gave them time to decompress from the high stress patients. As a physician I liked it because we were more likely to deal with the same shift of nurses during our working day, instead of seeing different ones morning and evening rounds.</p>
<p>I have heard that there is a shortage of PhD nurses to teach in nursing schools. Although medicine and nursing are parallel fields nursing has lost some women to medicine now that there are many more women physicians than in my day (when 10-14% women was the norm in medical school classes, increasing every year).</p>
<p>I wonder if current opportunities to be nurse practitioners with different roles has hurt the supply of regular nurses. Nursing is a profession, those who choose it do it for many reasons, not for the money. Nurses also get caught in the middle- they have enough responsibilities to be stressed with the decision making required but too often not enough power to be in charge of how things are done. btw- I could get together with hospital nurses and have fun ranking the different specialties’ general personalities, such as urologists being so much nicer in general than some other surgeons (gender not making as much difference).</p>
<p>Not sure if this is a coincidence, but DD went to nursery school with the daughter of a urologist. He was very sweet, as was his wife. </p>
<p>Yes, I’ve heard it said about surgeons that as young doctors, they don’t have that attitude, but once they cross over into being full fledged surgeons, they have a god complex. </p>
<p>Many new RN/BSNs are having a difficult time finding jobs. Hospitals loved grabbing them right out of nursing school in the past. Now? It’s nearly impossible. Again, with there being a great dichotomy in salaries earned, and the need to have experience in order to find a job, it’s surprising that people are still flocking to the field. Again, spending so much on a career with so much uncertainty and frustrations seems pretty expensive.</p>
<p>@singersdad My DD is a junior in the nursing program at BC. One day a week (6 hours) she spends at a hospital doing her adult health clinical. Next semester she will have two days of clinicals, 8 hours in adult health and 8 in childbearing. Next year she will have clinicals in peds, psych, community health and nursing synthesis. Is this not adequate preparation? Don’t most of the nursing programs have clinicals like this?</p>
<p>I am a nurse practitioner. I also work as a PRN RN. I love that if I need some extra money, I can go pull a couple shifts at the local hospital. At least where I live, I have not seen a lack of nursing jobs. . Of interest, my daughter has no desire to go into healthcare. </p>
<p>@3younguns I hate to speak for my wife but I will tell you from my perspective that in many university programs internships are essential. Often lasting many months, they provide real job experience 40 or more hours a week.Certainly clinical rotations are valuable and will provide some competence, moving from competent to fully capable however, takes experience.</p>
<p>My nephew who graduates this year from Miami U spent 2 summers in internships. Those full time experiences gave him confidence and prepared him to add value to an organization, fortunately it also led to a job offer.</p>
<p>I am not sure if some programs offer concentrated internships ( like my nephew had in a.business setting ) to nursing students in their chosen field of practice or not. But I would.think that would.be very valuable.</p>
<p>6-8 hours per week is painfully low. Not sure if that’s how it’s always been for BSN programs. LPN programs are oft times 24 hours per week. 3 days of clinical and 2 days of classroom time.</p>
<p>I’m just speculating here, but in regards to nurses that come out of nursing school now being less experienced - is it possible that the nursing profession has evolved so much now, requiring so much more technology and procedure knowledge that it’s just impossible to cover all the subjects appropriately? Think of all the advances that have been made since our generation attended college. I often question how they are able to learn it all in such a short amount of time.</p>
<p>In the “old days” there were a lot of Diploma Nurse programs. From what I understand, these nurses essentially lived at the hospital. Their in house training was intense and these nurses graduated much more ready to hit the ground running. </p>
<p>A BSN is not all about the nursing skills. They have to take all of the basic classes anyone getting a bachelor’s degree gets. History, government, etc. They cannot do that and learn all there is to learn about nursing in the 2 short years they are in actual nursing classes. The fact is that many of the things nurses do are “working with your hands” types of things. It takes starting many MANY IVs (and failing to start them with the first stick) to master that task. Putting in a foley catheter requires some manual skills that are obtained with lots of practice. Much of nursing is learning how to organize your tasks for the day with a full load of patients. You cannot give a student a full load of patients, so this is something that is only learned once you they have obtained the foundations of knowledge plus practical experience. It’s always been this way, regardless of how the experienced nurses now remember it. </p>
<p>When I graduated, we were probably no more competent in the actual hands on skills than the new grads now are. But hospitals like the one I started out took this into consideration and provided good solid preceptorship of the new grads, giving them time to learn the day to day stuff. We were nurtured by the experienced nurses, and it was expected that the newbies would need to be gradually integrated into the job. There were no expectations that a new grad would walk in with just as much competence as someone nursing for years. </p>
<p>My boss in the ICU said that too much is made about new nurses not having mastered the “skills” involved in nursing. With a good preceptorship program, she said, that can be easily addressed. Its THE THOUGHT PROCESSES that are critical to nursing, and that’s what she was trying to find when she hired new nurses. That’s why she usually only hired BSNs or ADNs who had shown success in another career prior or other valuable life experiences when she hired nurses right out of nursing school. She wanted to see evidence of those qualities, because in the ICU, it’s so much more than “doing things.” Nurses taking care of critically ill patients need to be able to anticipate potential problems and head them off rather than just reacting to crises with technology and other skills. From what I understand, hospitals are longer willing to nurture new grads. It’s easier and cheaper for them to just insist on experience when there is a glut of nurses looking to work at hospitals. </p>
<p>Can’t stress this enough. My wife is an NP, precepts NP students from the local programs, and absolutely refuses to bring in a student who did not work as a nurse for at least a couple of years before entering the program. Without a good grasp of the range of “normal,” it is very hard to recognize an “abnormal.” NP programs requiring neither a BSN nor experience are graduating some marginally prepared practitioners. Hospitals and insurance companies will continue to encourage this, though, to drive down salaries and implement a two-tier pricing structure for health care, one price for an MD visit and a lower reimbursement for an NP visit.</p>
<p>In the 1990s, there was a real push to rein in the hospitals’ practice of demanding more work from nurses with unpaid overtime, unsafe number of patients, and having an openly hostile work environment. Similar to what is happening in tech industries, hospitals pushed back by importing large numbers of foreign nurses, often paying them more than their experienced nurses, but less likely to ask for a raise or better working conditions.</p>
<p>My daughter was hired to work in a busy hospital emergency dept as an RN with only her ADN (she was in school for her BSN at that time). One skill that she brought with her than many of the older nurses didn’t have was computer skills. She had a very easy time transitioning to the new computer system for charting and she ended up helping many of the older nurses learn the new system. I found that very interesting. </p>
<p>@Newhaven It’s only 8 this semester. The next three semesters are 16 hours (maybe more I’m not sure) per week.
There are two hospital systems in Norcal who advertise for CNAs or nursing students with two semesters of clinicals. I’m hoping that my D can get one of these over the summer.</p>
<p>In the Puget Sound region, my friend with a LPN certificate, is making much more than her friends with 4- yr degrees, ( albeit she is just in her mid '20’s) and the birthing clinic where she works is very supportive of her working for her BSN, even though since she is working full time, she is going slowly, she loves it though and feels very appreciated.</p>
<p>Getting an LPN first actually sounds like a great way to go if you are interested in that side of the medical profession.
You get basic skills to start working right away, and if you decide that you want to go deeper, the clinics and hospitals may even pay for your continued education.
Better than getting a BSN without much practicum and deciding you can’t stand it.</p>
