Why are young adults not seeking the nursing profession?
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Name : Joanne T., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Hispanic/Latino (may be any race), Religion : Catholic, Age : 52, City : Salt Lake City, State : UT Country : United States, Occupation : Nursing, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, I have had occassion to visit hospitals on a regular basis for the last 35 years. You are wrong. Young adults are all over the nursing field. And they keep on acomin'. Young Asian adults, that is. But where are the young American nurses? Do they go to India or some such place? Do we have some sort of an international nurse exchange program going on, or what?
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Name : Ron29016, Gender : Male, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian, Age : 60, City : Stockton, State : CA Country : United States, Education level : High School Diploma, Social class : Middle class, When I was a teenager, I volunteered at a local hospital. I vividly remember a nurse once telling me that if I was interested in a health care career, I should be anything BUT a nurse. She said the work was hard and the hours were long, and she implied that the pay wasn't commensurate with the difficulty of the job. I've since read about the nursing shortage, and how many people are frightened away by mandatory overtime. As for me, I admit that I'm not a compassionate enough individual for a nursing career.
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Name : Dana24908, Gender : Female, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 34, City : Pittsburgh, State : PA Country : United States, Occupation : Database developer, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class, I considered going into nursing, but decided against it as it is very difficult (shift work, working some nights, some manual labor involved) but pays much less than traditionally male jobs, like doctors or surgeons. I can earn just as much and not have to work nights or weekends in an office job; I consider nursing a job that is not family-friendly for employees.
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Name : Carol, Gender : Female, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian, Age : 24, City : Berkshire, State : NA Country : United Kingdom, Social class : Middle class, It's for the same reason so many are not going into the teaching profession. The salary, and value of those positions are so under-appreciated in the U.S. that it is not an appealing option. I have a few friends who are going into a nurse-related profession, but only in specific positions. Anesthesia, or Private Sector, or some other offshoot, because none of them want to work as 'just' a hospital nurse. They don't see it as a job that has a livable wage, a proper amount of respect, or secure placement. It also doesn't help to have the healthcare system in current dire straights, and the HMO issues affecting a lot of medical facilities.
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Name : aysha, Gender : F, Age : 27, City : Ammon, State : ID Country : United States, Education level : 2 Years of College, I am a new nurse. One reason we don't have more young people going into nursing is that nurses 'eat their young'. Older nurses are very unsupportive and arrogant toward new nurses. I know, I've been through it already. You pick and pick instead of helping that new nurse get to where she/he needs to be to grow. The older nurses gripe and complain, but yet, I don't see any of them leaving the profession. I feel that if one has been in the nursing profession for 25+ years, then it can't be that bad to you. Then, too, the pay is too low for new graduates and they have to do too much for those few dollars. I mean, think about it. You are responsible for someone else's life. I think one should be paid for that responsibility. I mean, you can actually kill someone despite all you do. Then, you have to deal with arrogant SOBs called doctors. The doctors come in and write tons of orders in illegible handwriting. Then you are expected to juggle 7-8 patients and kiss the doctor's behind because they think they are God. They don't respect the nurses. I tell you, the profession should be rewarding. It is true, nothing is more rewarding than helping your fellow man. But when you do all you can to help people and then the patients are ungrateful and their families bitch about every little thing, why would one want to be a nurse? There is no respect for nurses and what we give and I think that when young people hear and see that, they choose to go on to another career where you can make more money. Sometimes I feel that it's not worth it to be a nurse anymore. Something needs to be done to attract more young people to because the shortage is only going to get worse as the population ages and lives longer. Who will care for these patients if we don't support and retain the nurses we have and foster the efforts to attract more people to it? We must respect our nurses, and the older nurses need to either support their new colleagues or get out of the way.
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Name : GreenNurse24258, Gender : Female, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Baptist, Age : 26, City : Jacksonville, State : AL Country : United States, Occupation : Registered Nurse, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower class, As a rookie nurse, I must say that the atmosphere is very hostile to new nurses. I notice that the nurses who have been there for years tend to not want to help the newer nurses. I notice a look of nit-picking and back-stabbing coming from the older nurses. I wonder why the veteran nurses would behave that way toward new nurses when they know good and well there needs to be unity among nurses due to the shortage. If we want to recruit new nurses and make nursing attractive to them, two things will have to happen: 1) the pay must be raised. We do not get paid enough to deal with what we deal with and 2) nurses must stop being so mean to one another and toward students. We must foster the future nurses or nursing as a career will be ousted.
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Name : GreenNurse, Gender : Female, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 25, City : Alabaster, State : AL Country : United States, Occupation : Registered Nurse, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class, I am married to a nurse and I work in a hospital. How many people think the following when considering vocational aspirations: I want a job where I can count on working nights until someone on day shift dies and it's my turn to move up; where doctors can complain to the director of nursing about me because they're having a bad day and I paged them because they're patient is dying or has questions about the procedure to be performed; where physicians can be dead wrong (no pun intended) in their assessment of a patient, but I'll get in trouble for questioning their decision or suggesting alternatives. And wouldn't it be cool to have a job where I could put my license, livelihood and patients' lives on the line by working 40 hours of normal work each week, then another 24 hours of mandatory overtime? It would be nice, too, if I could go into a career field in which other members go out of their way to stab each other in the back. And it would be a bonus if I found a career field whose members complain incessantly about the work they do. You get my point. Unless you're a really altruistic or a 'feel good' person, there doesn't seem to be much incentive or reason to go into nursing.
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Name : John S., Gender : Male, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 40s, City : Fayetteville, State : NC Country : United States, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, Nursing is a pretty intensive 'service' career without a lot of rewards, even today. Nurses are required to get nearly as many years of education as doctors, but rarely earn even half as much. The advent of the HMO culture and the ridiciulous amounts of paperwork it entails means that many nurses become essentially hopped-up file clerks who have no time to properly care for their patients, but receive all the blame if anything goes wrong. In a lot of hospitals, nurses are still viewed, even now, as nothing more than the doctors' handmaidens, with no right to think or act beyond 'doctor's orders.' The 'grocery baggers earn more than nurses' era has largely passed, but nurses still get very little respect from the general public, especially if they are male. The attitude of the girl's family towards Ben Stiller's character in 'Meet the Parents' was not really an exaggeration. All this aside, nursing is not an attractive career to only-child, spoiled-rotten, never-heard-the-word-'no' teens, which are increasingly the norm rather than the exception in America's colleges. (Easily half the nurses in the hospital I work in are foreign born). Things are slowly reversing themselves, because as they become rarer, and therefore a hot commodity, nurses can demand much better pay, respect, and working conditions, which will in its turn attract more people to nursing, but it's going to take a while to reverse the trend of the last twenty-odd years, especially with the 'brat pack' population hump moving through their college years right now.
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Name : Ann30949, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Animist, Age : 37, City : K.C., State : MO Country : United States, Occupation : Administrative Assistant, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, There are quite a few nursing students, just not many stay in the profession. There are too many jobs that pay better and have better hours. I worked for two years as a nurse and found it very rewarding but very frustrating. Understaffing is a major issue and respect of the profession is lacking.
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Name : TomS., Gender : Male, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian, Age : 45, City : Hager City, State : WI Country : United States, Occupation : Nuclear Security, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, As a young female, there are so many more option for careers that pay more and get more respect. I was a nurse for five months and I can tell you, I thought it would be a lot more rewarding that it was. Nursing is a hard job with not very good pay in accordance with today's standards. To advance up the pay scale, one would have to be a nurse for several years before seeing a nice salary. As a single parent, I am not able to make it on a beginning nurse's salary. I feel that young adults feel there are many more career options that pay more than nursing and requires less strenuous work. Nursing in stressful, physically and emotionally. In my opinion, it's just not rewarding enough.
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Name : BronzeTrophy, Gender : Female, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Baptist, Age : 24, City : Anniston, State : AL Country : United States, Occupation : Registered Nurse, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower class, When I was a child, I told myself that I would absolutely NOT be a nurse. My mom is a nurse, and I always hated to see the amount of hours she had to be away from home, and how tired she would be when she was at home (no matter if she worked first, second, or third shift). In high school I started working at a hospital, and I saw first-hand how stressed, over-worked, and under-appreciated nurses really are. I noticed that the hospital was almost constantly under-staffed--people were always asked to come in on their days off or to work extra hours. Of course, the employee could tell the supervisor 'no,' but few would do that because they wanted the money and favor. The nurses who would work extra were considered better than those who 'only' worked the insane amount of hours for which they were already scheduled. Nurses also have to deal with the demands of doctors (who are quite frustrating whether they're wishy-washy on a patient's treatment or relentless on 'their way' of doing things), and the rules of the hospital's administration. I also noticed that the lower-level employees get the most difficult tasks and the worst treatment from patients. A nursing assistant is usually the first step towards being an RN; if they're the ones who have to do the tedious, 'dirty' work, that might discourage some potential nurses. Most of the nursing assistants (and quite a few nurses as well) worked more than one job, sometimes at another hospital doing the same thing, or even some other work they could acquire for extra income. These are a few of the ideas I think of when I think of nurses and nursing. I still have a negative view on the profession, but after some time working as a unit secretary and then interning in the ER for EMT-B certification, I respect nursing much more. I would even consider becoming a nurse, if I could not be a police officer (which, curiously, has some of the same elements I didn't like about my mom's work).
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Name : N.A., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Caucasian, Religion : Catholic, Age : 19, City : Macomb, State : IL Country : United States, Occupation : student, Education level : High School Diploma, Social class : Upper middle class, My mother was a nurse for 35 years, retiring a few years ago. The biggest reasons people gave her for not going into a career in nursing were lack of respect and disproportionately low salaries. It's only fairly recently that nurses have begun to be seen as anything other than a spare pair of hands for the (presumably male) physician. For most of the last 150-odd years, female nurses were treated by the medical establishment like brainless automata, with no say in patient care, and no right to speak up or contradict a physician if they saw something wrong, but full liability if a patient was injured or died. Male nurses, in addition to this, were treated like 'failed physicians' - to wit, they 'obviously' only became nurses because they couldn't cut it as doctors. It's also only fairly recently that a nurse with 4 years of college, plus up to another 6 years of specialized graduate training, could expect to earn more per hour than the kid who bags your groceries at the local supermarket. The '90's were an especially bad time to be a nurse because of the rise of HMO's. In the HMO system, nurses became basically either file clerks with advanced degrees and a few nursing duties, because CNA's and Nurse Assistants are cheaper to hire for direct patient care, (especially if you aren't at all concerned about the quality of care your 'profit generation units' -er- patients receive), or they became 'gate keeper' telephone triage personnel whose sole job was making sure patients never actually saw a doctor. The backlash started in the late '90's, with nurses retiring or moving into other careers by the thousands, which in its turn created a severe shortage of qualified personnel, which persists right now to the point where a well-qualified nurse can essentially pick his/her job, and name his/her salary. Probably within a few years, things will level out again, because a lot of people are going through nursing school right now, but at the moment, if my mom wanted to come out of retirement, she could literally have her pick of jobs.
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Name : Ann, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Animist, Age : 39, City : Kansas City, State : MO Country : United States, Occupation : Executive Assistant, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, It seems like a stressful and underappreciated job, with long hours. I know that the 'health promotion and education' field is attractive to many (such as myself) because it focuses on prevention and early screening of diseases rather than on treatment. There's a million different directions to go in health promotion and seems like there's a lot of opportunities for new grads to 'change the world.' -- exactly what idealistic grads want to do.
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Name : Anne, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 22, City : Iowa City, State : IA Country : United States, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, As a young adult, my answer would be that I dislike the job itself. My previous job was at a movie theater. I've seen plenty of customers become unbelieveably upset at just a bag of popcorn...I'd rather not imagine how things would be if it were their health. I also would be rather unhappy working with the kinds of things that nurses deal with; all the things that go along with illnesses. And finally, I would be bored. Really bored. I'm a fairly ambitious young person, intellectually speaking, and I have high aspirations for embracing my intellectual creativity. I will not be finding an outlet for that as a nurse.
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Name : Exton, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : nontheist, Age : 18, City : Medway, State : MA Country : United States, Education level : High School Diploma, Social class : Middle class, 
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