BURNT OUT NURSES

Here is my story . I have been a nurse for 25 yrs. I have always loved taking care of patients. The problems has been that I have grown tired of the patients who don't appreciate what I do for them. The ones who feel the can treat you like you are a servant. The ones who think you are their private nurse. The ones who can't even say thank you.I know many nurses know exactly where I am coming from we need to unite and express what we feel.

If you were a nurse back in 1989 you were probably like most nurses,pretty excited about a new show that was just about to air on June 27,1989.Thinking that finally they were going to have a show about true nurses.

A decent show !A show , actually portraiting nurses as the skilled dedicated professionals we really are in the field.

Unfortunately what they aired was nothing more than nurses as lets who just say of another profession .They stripped us of our digity to the the world. The vision of the hard working professional nurse was stripped away. No wonder we are treated the way we are. We lost the respect to our profession.

What the TV show director never counted on was the strength of the nurses throughout the country who took a stand and said NO !!!. You will not make us look like that. We stood united and got that filthy show off the air on April 26, 1989.

Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations.

Definitions of nursing have evolved to acknowledge six essential features of professional nursing:

Provision of a caring relationship that facilitates health and healing,
Attention to the range of human experiences and responses to health and illness within the physical and social environments,
Integration of objective data with knowledge gained from an appreciation of the patient or group's subjective experience,
Application of scientific knowledge to the processes of diagnosis and treatment through the use of judgement and critical thinking,
Advancement of professional nursing knowledge through scholarly inquiry, and
Influence on social and public policy to promote social justice.
Reference: Nursing's Social Policy Statement (2nd Edition), 2003, published by the American Nurses Association The optimal use of Nursing's Social Policy Statement, Second Edition is with two other ANA texts, Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice (03SSNP) and Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements (CEP21). This trio of interlinked and indispensable references for and about the profession are also available as a set, ANA's Foundations of Nursing (03FNDN).

Above is a the definition of nursing. My definition of nursing is caring for another human being physical,spiritualy,emotional.A nurse is a mentor. A nurse is a teacher. A nurse is a friend.

As I am writing this, I really don't think people truly understand what is happening out there. Wake up !! Where have the nurses gone....

Nurses are retiring.I have just received an e-mail from an instructor who can't wait to retire.

Nursing schools can't teach because there are no instructors which means no students no future nurses to carry our torches.

I personally know two nurses off the bat who are studing courses out of the Nursing field. They want OUT. Can you blame them.

Is there someone listening. Anyone...

Statistics show we now have a nursing shortage of 120,000-125,000 nurse nationwide. Who is replacing them ? Better yet who is caring for the patients??

Again where have the nurses gone.

There's an old saying that goes "you have to do what you have to do."

If the need for nurses in this province cannot be met domestically, then the route to follow is to look elsewhere.

That's exactly what officials at River Valley Health have done. They say hiring nurses from across the globe is one way the region is battling a significant shortage.

Andrea Stierle-MacNeill, River Valley Health's regional manager of recruitment and workforce planning, said the region hires between two and four immigrant nurses per year.

She said she believes that number could rise if the region continues to struggle to hire Canadian-born nurses.

"As we have positions that are still not filled, we will pursue foreign workers," she said.

Finding workers in health care these days is not only a struggle but a sign of the times.

Health institutions from coast to coast are screaming for professionals - whether doctors or nurses - to fill positions and maintain a standard of care all of us can be comfortable with.

According to a 2002 study by the Canadian Nurses Association, if past workforce utilization patterns of registered nurses in Canada continues, this country will experience a shortage of 78,000 RNs by 2011 and 113,000 RNs by 2016.

Those are alarming figures.

What's even more disturbing is the effect all of this is having on overworked nurses currently in the system.

The results of a study that analyzed findings from the 2005 National Survey of the Work and Health of Nurses - reported in May of this year by Statistics Canada - revealed that nurses who worked in hospital settings where staffing and resources were perceived to be inadequate, as well as those who usually worked overtime, were more likely to report that a patient had received the wrong medication or dosage.

The survey data showed that 19 per cent of registered nurses in hospitals acknowledged that during the year before the survey, errors involving medication for patients who were in their care had occurred "occasionally" or "frequently."

Looking abroad for nursing professionals appears to be more and more of an answer, at least until an internal solution can be found.

But, in the same breath, we have to be careful that those we hire outside our borders have been trained to a level where they can easily fit into what is expected of them here.

The supposition that medicine is medicine regardless of where you're from is simply not true.

The above article is stating the facts about what is happening to our nurses. We now need to get foreign nurses.

There are problems that ar not being addressed here.What happens to the patient who doesn't understand the nurse ? Better yet what happens when the nurse doesn't understand the procedure properly?

Why hasn't anyone listened to the nurses to see what the problem is to stop this now before the problem gets worse...

To all nurses. Come share you story.Together we can get thru this. We all need each other. We are strong. Look at our numbers. We count. Stand up and tell us your story! Stand up and be heard! The time is now.

This goes out to Chenee and all the nursing students out there. I was in you shoes. I know your saying but it was different back then.Not really. I know how tough it is and all the negative things written out there about nursing but you can't quit. You see you are our hope. We need to all band together I can't do it alone. I need more voices. I need my fellow nurse to step up for our profession. I need to hear you ...

A nurse is a member of the professional health care team who is responsible for the treatment,safety and recovery of acutely and chronically ill patients.She/He provide care at birth and death. We do it all. Amazing how we are not recognized for our accomplishments. Well this must end.

IT CAN ONLY END WHEN EACH ONE OF US LINK TOGETHER!!
I am willing to be a voice but I can not do it alone. I need each one of my colleages take a stand with me . Together we stand tall.

Hundreds of frustrated nurses picketed outside Boston Medical Center yesterday, as union leaders criticized the hospital for stalling contract talks.

Nurses at the city's busiest hospital said they want competitive pay, respectful working conditions and appropriate staffing levels. They said working conditions at the nonprofit medical center have plummeted in recent years.

"It's a fearful environment and a hostile environment," said Joe-Ann Fergus, spokeswoman for the nurses' union. "And now, when there is a lot of competition for nurses, the medical center is losing valuable nursing talent."

Boston Medical Center has two separate nurses' groups. The group picketing yesterday work at the center's East Newton Street campus and are represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association. Their contract was set to expire six months ago but has been extended during contract talks.

Ellen Berlin, spokeswoman for Boston Medical Center, said in a prepared statement that "the hospital has already reached agreement with the MNA on many important and substantive issues and we are hopeful that we will soon reach agreement with the MNA nurses on the issues that remain unresolved."

The nurses' chief complaint is that the administrators at the medical center require nurses to float from one highly specialized area to another, often without adequate knowledge to properly care for patients.

The nurses are seeking a post-retirement health insurance program to bridge the time between retirement and government assistance and a larger pay raise.

Although Boston Medical Center has posted record profits of more than $74 million in the last 18 months and recently awarded its chief executive, Elaine Ullian, a 46 percent pay increase, nurses at the East Newton Street campus say they are paid less than nurses at other Boston teaching hospitals.

Unfortunately comments written were from angry individuals and one person who was very appalling.
I have enclosed my opinions

To my sister/brother nurses I commend you for standing up for you rights. We need to be hear. It is important that nurses get paid for the hard dedicated work they do. They save LIVES .I have been a nurse for 24 yrs. and can fully understand you frustrations. As for the former comment who's vocabulary was unacceptable and appalling .It is patient like you why nurses should get paid even more money to be compensated for putting up with this nonsense.

I want to speak on behalf of patients first. Maybe there would not be such situations as was discribed in earlier comments if there wasn't a nursing shortage. Mistakes happen because of understaffing. To the person who feels nurses get paid too much. Can I ask you What do you think a life is worth ? Do you think nurses should give the best care to your loved ones. Should't they get paid for life and death decisions. Can you do the job ? We do see your side when will someone see ours.

WASHINGTON - Wanted: Nurses, physicians assistants, pharmacists and lab technicians.

In Maryland, the nursing shortage has reached almost 10 percent, 2,603 full-time nurses.

The vacancy rate for speech therapists is more than 20 percent, according to a new report from the Maryland Hospital Association. It's nearly 20 percent for respiratory therapists. The rate is more than 15 percent for occupational therapists and physician assistants.

The findings are in a study of 41 hospital positions.

Maryland Hospital Association President and Chief Executive Officer Carmela Coyle says the problem is expected to get worse.

"We don't have enough nurses in the pipeline today to fill those retiring nurse positions," she says.

The association predicts a shortage of 10,000 nurses in less than a decade.

The vacancy rate in Virginia is running less than the national average of 8 percent because of economic growth, but that could be short term.

(Copyright 2008 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

Is there anyone geting the picture of what is happening .Just look at MARYLAND. More to come....

Train and retain more to meet need of growing group of aging Baby Boomers, report urges
By Bob LaMendola | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
August 28, 2008
Florida's nursing shortage will become "crippling" in a decade unless health officials quickly train many more nurses and retain more of the ones they have, a new state report says.

Experts are unsure, however, if the demand for nurses can be met.

Today's shortfall of 11,000 registered nurses would balloon to 52,000 by 2020 and would start to hurt health care within six years if the situation does not improve soon, according to the report from the state-funded Florida Center for Nursing. The shortage is greatest in South Florida.

"We find that 50,000 shortage to be catastrophic," said Jennifer Nooney, research director at the center and lead author of the report. "We want to fix the shortage instead of creating a situation where hospitals have to shift the nursing workload to lesser trained [workers]."

Related links
Nursing by the numbers Nurses have been in short supply nationally for a decade, with South Florida among the hardest hit. The predominantly female profession has changed in recent decades as women found many other career options and left the increasingly stressful hospital setting. At the same time, the nation is using more health care.

In South Florida hospitals, about 16 percent of registered nurse jobs are vacant despite money to hire them and recruiting efforts, state figures show.

Nooney's research team looked at the trends in how many nurses would be needed by hospitals and other institutions, based on the rising level of health care needed given the aging of the Baby Boomers.

The report found that demand would far outstrip the supply of registered nurses, even though it has been growing steadily but slowly. The shortage of licensed practical nurses also would grow, from about 2,600 now to more than 7,000.

To avoid a huge shortage, the report estimated that registered-nurse graduates - now 6,000 a year in Florida - would have to rise by 15 percent yearly. Also, the report urged hospitals to try harder to retain nurses, such as by easing workloads and stress.

Nursing school officials said they have been stymied in expanding classes enough to handle a large number of students interested in nursing. Instructors and hospital space for field training are scarce.

"Fifteen percent more is an awful lot to ask," said Leslie Kent, associate nursing professor at Palm Beach County Community College and a board member of the center. "It's not un-doable but it's very hard. It's not something that's going to be taken care of right away."

Some schools can't pay enough to attract nurses to become instructors, said Nelda Peragallo, dean of the University of Miami nursing school, which graduates about 500 per year.

"Thousands of qualified students are turned away from nursing programs each year as a result of insufficient faculty," Peragallo said.

If the shortage worsens, institutions would look for more ways to shift duties to nursing aides, a process already well under way. Hospitals also would hire more temporary nurses, who are valuable but less familiar with the setting, Nooney said.

"Patient care would be affected," said Silvia Stradi, chief nursing officer at Palms West Hospital in Loxahatchee and president of the Nursing Shortage Consortium of South Florida. "That is reality."

Bob LaMendola can be reached at blamendola@SunSentinel.com or 954-356-4526 or 561-243-6600, ext. 4526.

Nursing by the numbers
150,000

Estimated current demand for registered nurses

217,000

Expected demand by 2020

138,200

Number of available nurses

165,000

The number that will be available by 2020 if the present trend of nursing graduates continues

Help Team » Health report

More to the story
For more statistics on Florida's nursing shortage, see Page 2.

I guess the word is out the nurse are out of here.They just can't Take it .Please read the following ARTICLE writen by Keith Purtell. Scary isn't it ??

Hospitals are not the only health care organizations struggling to recruit staff.

Nursing homes, hospices and similar facilities all face the chronic shortage of nurses.

At Pleasant Valley Health Care Center, Sandy Sundquist, licensed practical nurse and assistant director or nursing, said nurses are free to choose the most attractive jobs.

"It just seems like the nurses in this area don't want to come to work, or they expect a whole lot for nothing," she said. "Because it is so competitive, they know that they can have less responsibility for more pay if they go somewhere else."

The result is a very big challenge to get quality nurses, especially in a long-term care setting.

"The ones that we have who tend to stay with us longer, they're very compassionate and very family-oriented," she said. "I have found that a lot of times the staff members that make a quality nurse and stay longer in long-term care are the ones who have more responsibilities at home."

Sundquist said age makes a lot of difference in attitude of nurses who stay.

"A lot of times they're not the younger ones who have just graduated from school," she said. "They're usually the ones who already have a family. So usually it's not the young teeny-bopper mentality that stays; usually it's the one with responsibility."

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the United States is in the midst of a nursing shortage that is expected to intensify as baby boomers age and the need for health care grows. Compounding the problem is the fact that nursing colleges and universities across the country are struggling to expand enrollment levels to meet the rising demand for nursing care.

Statistics from the AACN include:

The shortage of registered nurses in the United States could reach as high as 500,000 by 2025, according to a report released by Dr. Peter Buerhaus and colleagues in March 2008.

In a statement released in March 2008, The Council on Physician and Nurse Supply, an independent group of health care leaders based at the University of Pennsylvania, has determined that 30,000 additional nurses should be graduated annually to meet the nation's health care needs, an expansion of 30 percent over the current number of annual nurse graduates.

According to the latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published in the November 2007 Monthly Labor Review, more than one million new and replacement nurses will be needed by 2016. Government analysts project that more than 587,000 new nursing positions will be created through 2016 (a 23.5 percent increase), making nursing the nation's top profession in terms of projected job growth.

Are there any nurse who would like to comment ?

I have been asked for my opinion on what is harder, Nursing school or the "real world".I had to give a honest opinion.
Since I speak from experience being a nurse for so long I had to say while you are in Nursing school it feels harder but if you go to a good school like I did they were tough.
My class started off with 32 students . I will never forget when I went in for the interview I felt I was going to the inquisition.I did not realize at the time how valuable that was for me that the instructors cared so much to make sure they let me know what I was getting into. We started school in Aug. My graduating class was 12 .

I must say the experiences I learned taught me to be a charge nurse,supervisor and Medical Director.
I needed my skills as a nurse. Lives depended on my knowledge .So, yes I was happy they were tough. I still communicate with two of the three instructors who molded my nursing career.

Please share you ideas ,comments and thoughts I would love to hear what you would have to say.

For the new graduates my advice to you is this ,time will make you strong. If this is your passion, your dream go for it do not let anything stand in you way.

The economic crisis could have a significant impact on nurses, forcing many to seek additional work, experts warned today.

This week's Nursing Standard reports that the economic downturn is causing house and share prices to drop, and jobs cuts in many sectors.

Workforce expert Professor James Buchan of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK, says: "In comparison with other industries such as banking, nursing appears to be a relatively stable career. Jobs are still available in nursing."

But under the current climate, nurses may be put under pressure to support an entire household. "If that is the case, nurses may be keen to increase their hours and earnings," he suggests.

This already appears to be happening, according to figures from the NHS Professionals special health authority. They show there has recently been a 17.5 per cent increase in the number of shifts being carried out.

And opportunities to join the nursing profession may become limited, warns Professor Buchan. "As retention improves and nurses work longer hours, the government may decide to reduce investment in the training of new nurses," he says.

He also predicts that as the economy slows, there will be fewer chances for nurses to leave the profession for another career.

Christine Hancock, a former general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, agrees that there is "no room for complacency" among employees. But she urges bosses to consider the wellbeing of their staff.

"Employers need to be careful not to overlook staff because they do not have anywhere else to go," she said. "If they do, nurses will leave as soon as the economy picks up."

Date: October 8th 2008

Here is another example of how the stresses of our economy combined with the stresses of our job expectations are just not being ackledged . We are intellegent profesionals who are dedicated to our professions but must not have our voices heard and must stop this now.

I am so happy to be returning to this squiddo. I have had problems with my computer both at work and home. There is nothing worse than a computer going down.

As being a nurse with a "we can do anything attitude" .. I decided to tackle the beast. So I went and took a deep breath and dug right in.If it has happened to you than you can relate.

One day I had a dream I was working as a nurse. I looked in the mirror and saw I was old. I saw myself in my uniform ready to go to work. But was I really ready ?? Where did the years go..

The problem was I needed assistance to ambulate because I have Fibromyalgia and couldn't walk without a walker. How was I going to care for my patients ? I also had arthritis in my hands. How was i suppose to do a wound care procedure or even chart on these patients.I didn't even remember who I saw last..

I also needed help reading things because my glasses weren't strong enough. So how was I going to administer medications or teach people how to administer insulin for example .How was I going to drive my car if I couldn't see well.

I remember someone in my dream trying to talk to me but I couldn't hear them . I know they were shouting something but I couldn't understand it.

How was I going to give the proper care my patients needed? Can you see what I am saying..

Lucky for me this was only a dream but for others it may be their reality. Can you honestly say you want to be that nurse or her patient .Well you might be one or the other because nurses are working to an older age because they need the medical benefits and salary.

I was fortunate enough not to let myself become one of our "golden angels of mercy". What are your plans.? Do you have any ?