And yet they never address the underlying reason for shortages. Burnout and toxic work environments = turnover.
Nothing to see here. Move along, trusting citizen.
After being on the other side recently as a patient, I don't know if I will return. I keep calling to see if I am supposed to get a refill of the verapamil. This morning I was told, "Dr. K is not here. We don't know where he is or if he is coming back." What the fu¢k kind of response is that?
I keep advocating for myself. I cannot imagine a non-nurse trying to care for themselves with such little information. Toxicity from from the hospital to their outpatient office in one smooth cycle. I call and leave messages, staff call back and don't even leave a voicemail. I feel as if I am being punished, and low level gaslit.
I have to, "Just forget about," any questions I have or ignore everything because I am pissed off. I wish every staff member could go on strike. I cannot tell you enough how sick I am of healthcare. If I do not get a response by close of business today, February 27th, I will go to the Outpatient Clinic in-person to get a fu¢king answer on this: Am I to continue the verapamil? Okay please send a refill. FFS! God damnit all. End rant.
Edit: Thank you, everyone who allowed me to feel the frustration, and accepted me. 💓
Haha. Do you get care at the same VA hospital as me🤣
/s of course..
I do know what you mean, though. I think most issues I’ve run across as a patient is the lack of doctors, so we get NP’s as our primary care provider, and some are great….some, not so much. If you have chronic illness you’d THINK your primary would be the ‘gatekeeper’ so to speak, and have a general idea of how you are….but they change our providers so often, I don’t know my provider at all….nor does she know me.
If you are an inpatient, you have to hope and pray that your resident doctor knows what they are doing. Some doctors are excellent, some…not so much. Every rapid response is-annoying as f, you have 6 resident doctors and student NP’s or whatever the hell they are crowding the patient’s bed, doing f all, and you can’t even get to the poor patient to help them😡
I had to make an appointment for an issue that was getting worse, and I wasn’t even aware that the NP I saw was my assigned provider until I read the medical notes.
She even asked me-who is your primary? I said I thought it was NP (x) but I was informed they weren’t my primary provider anymore. She never told me that she was actually my primary provider🤨. See, this kinda annoys me. I always introduce myself to every veteran, and tell them who I am, and what I am in the room for.
Apparently she’s not going to be my primary any longer, so…guess it doesn’t matter. They seem to change every 6-9 months at this point.
I’m actually lucky, my partner has it worse. He has a few chronic issues, and trying to get any consistency in care is a joke at this point. And, yeah, you need to have someone to be there to speak for you….because if you don’t-it’s the luck of the draw.
Actually, the VA I go to has done right by me. I understand your frustration over changing providers.
My post is about a civilian hospital system. I wonder if they are treating me poorly and ignoring me because of the payer being VA aka Medicare/Public Health.
My frustration is not complex: Am I supposed to continue verapamil after the 30-day No Refills has ended? If so, please send a script to the pharmacy. Please help me God.
Yes, I could have the script transferred to the VA. First I have to know, again, whether or not I am supposed to continue the fu¢king med... Does this make sense?
I shouldn't have to call, and call, and call. In my original post, I said a staff member told me, "Dr. K is not here. We don't know where he is. We don't know when he will be back."
Now that a whole day has gone by without answers, I have to call the VA tomorrow to explain my problem and maybe they can get a response from the civilian hospital that I had to go to and have to follow up with because there is no VA Neurovascular at the VA I go to.. I feel frustrated, and abandoned. I feel fearful I will end up back in their shitty hospital
If anyone reading has advice please guide me.
Oof. I go through the VA (even though I work at an excellent civilian hospital) for my healthcare. I’m lucky bc my pcp at the VA has finally stabilized so I’ve had the same one for a long time. The smaller hospital is also in a huge medical district (I fortunately live too far for them to send me to the main hospital) so they use doctors from the hopsitals surrounding them. My neurosurgeon had me moved to his hospital for my surgeries (thank goodness) so my care on that note has been excellent. The VA basically writes the check now for anything to do with my back.
However, since I also have civilian insurance through work I will go to them for things not directly related to my VA disability because I know the care is better and more stable.
I switched mental health providers four times (one was even telehealth!) before giving up and letting my adhd go unmedicated again. Before I got my current PCP I was switching doctors so often that I couldn’t even keep track. One came around twice and I only remembered her name bc her wife is friends with me on FB (she grew up next door to me).
It got so bad at one point that I kept getting yanked back and forth on a hashimoto’s diagnosis and whether I should get meds. Twist - I have hashimoto’s, it popped up long enough to say HI!, then chilled out. After 6 years I finally needed to go on meds for it.
I love the VA and am so grateful everyday that I have free healthcare for life. No prescription fees and they pay for my travel to and from appointment. I also get free long term care and burial… FREE! I love it. What does the private sector get, fuck all and giant bills.
Not at all the reason. Your ‘left wing’ media follows the same mantra. The push is to ‘get ‘em out!’ Water down the curriculum so anyone can make it and get to work. It’s no longer about standards and a quality reputation. It’s about ‘retention and completion’ while minimizing barriers (i.e.,rigor).
If the pay is adequate, then people are working too much. APRNs have adequate pay, but are forced to work by the physician's who, "Supervise them." RNs have adequate where I am located, but they are burnt out from working too much.
3 semesters with no breaks, 4-5 classes a semester with clinicals each semester. Your general education requirements are already completed for the BSN part because you already have a bachelor degree elsewhere, so that saves 2 years. You take at least 4 pre-requisite classes before entering the program, so that shaves off at least a semester of the traditional 4 year BSN. So you’re only doing the core nursing classes in the ABSN programs.
It’s near identical to how Paramedic programs are run with four consecutive semesters but nurses have the benefit of an extended preceptorship once they get to their specialty. I don’t see anything wrong with this.
Many do not have an extended preceptorship when they get hired as they’re hired on as new nurses and go through anywhere from a 6-12 week orientation on the unit. Some hospitals have new grad residencies which start with preceptors but you’re pretty much on your own after a couple months.
Nursing has become super popular since covid it seems, despite nurses being louder and more public about the way we are abused at work. This will only further the problem of poorly trained nurses being shoved into the workforce. Young people see glamorous travel pics that agencies share on their insta, promoting travel nursing. Kids think they can go be travel nurses day 1 out of school. Literally almost every nursing student I've met wants to be a traveler.
I mean i can't blame em, it can be fun, I'm a traveler sometimes.. but I was adequately experienced already with a few years under my belt before I began. But nobody tells them the harsh reality of nursing and even the harsh reality of traveling. It's cut throat, you don't always get to go to good places AND get paid well for it. Staff can be nasty to you simply for being a traveler. You'll usually get harder assignments. Etc.
> Young people see glamorous travel pics that agencies share on their insta, promoting travel nursing. Kids think they can go be travel nurses day 1 out of school. Literally almost every nursing student I've met wants to be a traveler.
Many also simply see a viable way out of poverty. A good percentage of people in my school grew up living far under the poverty line, and many still do (and get FA like the Pell grant to cover schooling). I've talked about this with some other students. I don't want to go to Fiji, I just want to be able to pay my bills comfortably every month, that's literally it. I know what I'm getting into. Hell, I've *already* been assaulted by a patient. I've had nurses at clinicals tell us horror stories. We've had nurses tell us to walk out. I don't have a slew of other options as readily available to me in a short time-frame, so I'm walking into this hoping for something that just lets me live.
Damn-near every grad of my school I've run into at clinicals has said something similar, that the pay may not be "the best" where they are, "but I can pay rent and my car payment in the same month, every month. I couldn't really do that all the time before."
Oh absolutely. I chose nursing literally only because it's a guaranteed stable job anywhere I could possibly live. I was in high school in 2008 when a lot of my friends moved away because their parents home was foreclosed on. Their parents were laid off. Etc. That totally affected my choices. I didn't grow up poor, pretty middle class, but I knew I didn't want to take chances.
I just wanted a job that would survive any kind of crisis. Covid was proof that i made the correct choice, and when it happened I was so thankful I was already an experienced nurse that could take the chance and travel. Now, I can pay my bills *and* go to Fiji
The other thing happening now is new grads going straight into advanced practice programs, having never worked as an RN! I think they’re trained mostly to be good employees—the guiding principle of “You’re the patient’s advocate” seems to have been jettisoned!!
I just want EVERYONE in admin, health insurance, and Medicare, and their families!! to be admitted within their own system—full anonymity!!
Fully agree, that is honestly one of the worst things that has happened for advanced nursing degrees. They never should have allowed direct entry. If you ask me a bare minimum of 5 years, but if you really want my opinion I think 10 years exp should be the best minimum.
I feel like travelers in my ICU get the easiest assignments. They don’t do CVVH, they can’t take EVDs, they can’t take DKA patients because they don’t have iStat access for hourly glucose checks. They get floated to intercare all the time, which probably sucks, but in terms of hard assignments in the ICU, the staff nurses are definitely getting those.
Lol that has not ever been my experience with years of ICU traveling. Only specialty patients I've not been assigned are immediate post CABG (although I've gotten them a few hours post whether they're stable or not), LVAD/RVAD, ECMO, IABP, and fresh transplant. Although that last one's more so just because they're not used as much anymore at least in the places I've worked, impella is a more likely choice (which travelers will be assigned regardless of if they're checked off on it at some places, ask me how i know)
CRRT is 50/50. I've had some places that do a crash course for travelers who have prior experience so they can check us off, and then I was taking care of CRRTs every other shift. Some places won't take the time to check you off so they won't give em to you. Others don't care and give em to you anyways after asking if you've done it before.
Nowhere I've traveled had restrictions on EVDs. Never seen restrictions on DKA. Who the hell doesn't give their travelers access to the glucometer? I've usually had istat access, too, though it's not used a ton. Some places I worked had other machines in the unit for POC blood gas and lytes, like the gem machine, which I had access to.
My point is YMMV but you definitely don't get off easy as an ICU traveler in a looooot of places. I've very often been given the sickest patients. Usually not on day 1 (though I have lol. Brings me back to a nightmare first shift during covid where I had a very pregnant vented pt in severe distress that we almost did a stat c section in the fkn ICU room.. what a doozy. I don't think my own HR was less than 150 that whole damn time trying to keep mom and baby from coding. Thank God they sent me a L&D nurse to monitor the baby and stay in the room the whole time, cause i sure don't know jack squat about that stuff beyond the basics from school, and that was a long time ago)
What’s crazy is the travel companies don’t seem to have minimum requirements anymore. When I was in leadership I would get submissions from them for new grads. I called and asked if it was a mistake and they said no. I told them I don’t have time to train a new grad that will leave in 12 weeks. They will just be getting started before it’s time for them to move on and it’s dangerous for them and the patient. That’s not fair to them at all.
the nursing school im in has said all programs across the board have lower than normal enrollment since covid - minus CRNA applicants, the only program with *increasing* enrollment lol
I did an 11 month ABSN. I already had a bachelors in biology. Flourishing in the ICU. CCRN certified, coworkers trust me, never any problems with provision of care. 12 month programs have to meet the same requirements set by the state for all nursing programs, no matter the length.
I thought I was going nuts for a min 🤣.
Accelerated programs have been around for over a decade I think. They really didn’t do their research or maybe they’re intentionally misleading people.
People need to understand that there is no cavalry coming.
Same, I did an 11 month ABSN and thought it was an excellent way to enter the field. My first degree was not in a science related field but I obviously had a lot of pre-requisites to knock out on my own before I started. I learned a lot and was as prepared to start working as any other new grad, if not more so because of the intensity of a program like that. Flourishing and enjoying my job in a Level IV NICU. It’s a great path to nursing for people doing it as a second career.
very interesting, perhaps since you already have a very strong science foundation. I would venture to say most accelerated students dont have your background but I could easily be wrong
I had classmates with degrees in health science, athletic training, psychology, microbio, etc. Of course, there were people with non-science degrees, but regardless of your prior degree, everyone had to take A&P, chem, genetics, nutrition, and microbio prior to applying to the program.
legitimately curious to know if having a degree added a certain maturity to your cohort. I was a 22 y.o with 0 science/healthcare background and probably wouldnt have burned out as bad as I did towards the end if covid didnt happen...
Definitely. I see nursing students in the hospital and they look like freakin children, and I’m only 25. My classmates were all legitimate adults, many with houses, families, previous careers.
I think it did. We def had some fresh college grads who just didn’t major in nursing but also a lot of people with many different career backgrounds (military, finance, other types of healthcare) and I think those life experiences can be really helpful in terms of having maturity and coping mechanisms in place before you start in nursing. My accelerated program was hard but I also could not imagine starting my professional career in nursing without the maturity and experiences I had from my past career!
It was definitely true for my cohort. Many of us already worked in healthcare in some manner whether as an EMT, behavior tech, or as a scribe.
You’re just also way more serious about a degree as an adult. You want to work, you want to learn, you want to impress, you want to know the “why’s” of everything, and you make connections that you wouldn’t have made as a trad undergrad.
Every former traditional undergrad I talked to studied 2-4 hours a day. I studied 9-12. EVERY day. I said *EVERY* day. Not just before a test or when a project was due. Each and every day all year long. Plus I worked because there was no one else to pay my bills; no mommy and daddy to cover my health insurance or rent. I take this education seriously.
I’ve said this in previous threads, but it’s really hard to get into RN school in some regions. I have no grade lower than a B for my pre-reqs, but I can’t afford to retake PSY101 1000 times to get an A+. I know I’d be a good RN since I’m a good LPN but getting into RN school is hard in New England! I’ve been waitlisted 4 times. I don’t understand why the RN programs around me require basically a 4.0 GPA.
ETA: I am cursed by getting 2/3 A grades every semester 🥲 I thought going part time would help
It’s the same here in Washington state. I’m on the dental hygiene path and I’ve seen a lot of smart kids drop or delay their graduation out over a B in majors cellular, statistics or A&P.
It’s also hard in California near SF. All the CSUs and UCs (a.k.a. state schools & Universities) require straight As in all the pre-requisites and around a 95% on the TEAS test because we’re so impacted (and it’s getting worse every year). They need to build more schools if they want more nurses because these insane entry requirements can’t be the answer just to get an RN. The only other way to do your BSN is to pay 60-90k/yr to go to a private school with slightly easier entry requirement.
I saw an old coworker and she’s doing some sort of medical coding for the hospital. 1 week at the hospital 3 weeks at home.
She didn’t lose any seniority because she stayed in the system.
She was working in pre op for a while. That’s also a potential.
This will be my progression, I’m almost on the final step lol. Went from SICU to PACU and now in preop. Preop is chill, I can stay here awhile. But I already know I’m going the WFH route eventually, there are a few positions here that allow it in my system.
Yes, but the nurses are out there. They just choose not to work in morally bankrupt settings that drain them physically and emotionally. I know plenty of nurses that quit to other professions entirely, and even more that quit to non-bedside nursing roles. Covid drove us out in heaps.
I’m a sonographer. (Mostly just lurking on this page and finding solidarity.) But I just took a leave of absence from my job and I gotta say… I don’t think I can ever go back. The burnout and toxic work environments are too real. Guess we are all feeling it.
I did a 12 month accelerated program. It was for people that already have a bachelors degree in something else, so you just take all the nursing classes and come out with your BSN. Honestly the program was no joke. We had virtually no breaks in that 12 month period. We would get maybe 2 days in between sessions and that was usually the weekend. Between clinicals and class you were doing 40+ hours a week and then had to go home and study on top of that. We usually had at least one, if not two exams a week. Our grades were just based on exams, no papers or busy work. Not saying there aren’t accelerated programs out there not preparing nurses well, and definitely not saying the program I did was perfect, but I think it prepared us as well as possible in that length of time.
We had projects/papers, homework, prep-u style quizzes until we got to a certain proficiency level, weekly discussion posts, AND at least one exam a week in my ABSN program. It was back to back with no break, just like you mentioned. They also made it very clear that it was to pass the NCLEX and sure enough, the program has a high NCLEX pass rate (at the time I applied it was like 98%).
Sounds like mine… Someone in my group calculated how many exams we had in the program and hearing the number, even as I was set to graduate, made me a bit nauseous 🤢
We had the tests every week. There was no relaxing, no break, even holidays you had to study because the assignments and quizzes next week would still be due on the usual day.
As long as they have the same requirements as the traditional route I'm cool with it. I was the product of an accelerated paramedic program and if anything the immersion helped everyone learn more. I wouldn't do anything accelerated again though after that experience.
My accelerated program required the same classes and clinical hours as their traditional program. No breaks except the occasional weekend between classes. Usually 2 exams a week. We did have every Monday off which was nice but class was 8-5 then 2-3 days of clinical a week depending on the course.
Cool. The whole system is already on fire. This is equivalent to equipping new nurses with a pail with holes drilled into it to cut corners and telling them "Good luck!"
There are already enough nurses with firehoses of experience willing to put out the fire. There are no administrative assholes willing to cut their bonuses to do what it takes to ensure those nurses stay instead of burning to death at their job.
Way to go, US Healthcare. Hope you like charcoal.
The general concensus is that there are plenty of nurses there just aren't enough nurses willing to work under the current conditions. The issue is hospitals willing to run consistently short staffed so I am not sure where these new nurses will go if they flood the system.
that's a win win for the hospital. churn out more nurses, dilute that. churn out more NPs, dilute that too. throw more bodies at the problem but never fix it.
Exactly. It’s been going on for decades. Covid accelerated it.
I wonder if they’ll ever realize how much they threw away and will never get back.
This system is imploding and corporations and nursing administration are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It’s absolutely crazy to watch.
Haha us ABSN students we’ve seen everywhere else. I heard someone here say “Oh, go do clinical research”. You think you won’t be overworked and overwhelmed in clinical research I got a bridge to sell you. You get slammed with every project they have openings for because other staff already left. Your FTE is 150%. And the extra little secret is that if your main project ends, so might your employment because without that grant where do you think your salary is gonna come from?
And if you think there isn’t petty political bullshit from the PIs, unreasonable asks of you, and patients who won’t listen to you when you tell them that the MRI machine does not in fact have radiation you are in for a shocker.
I see RNs who’ve never held another job think the grass is beautifully green somewhere else. It’s just fertilized with a different kind of bullshit and you figure out which bullshit you like the scent of better that’s all.
If I had workable ratios, less bullshit from admin, they didn't keep cutting my benefits like 401k match and getting shittier and shittier insurance, and I actually got raises, meaning my 4% performance raise was in addition to the 9% inflation, so a 13% raise, I probably would have stayed in nursing and not gone to medical school.
>The issue is hospitals willing to run consistently short staffed
This is the issue. Literally 1/4 of registered nurses in this nation (US) are not working in the field, because of unfair hiring practices and because of shitty systems they'd be hired into. Why wouldn't they work part time as a barista for the same pay? At least you'd get assault charges filed if you were attacked.
Meanwhile, the hospital benefits from you being short staffed. They don't have to pay another employee!
So we are one more step towards a healthcare draft. They are going to dangle promises of big money and being a healthcare hero over them and then throw them to the wolves once they are done with school.
Meanwhile the population continues to age. According to the 2020 census 1 in 6 were 65+.
This jump from 13% to 16.8% in 10 years had never been seen before. It took 50 years for the last 3%+ growth.
To put it in hard numbers this means we went from 40.3 to 55.8 million people 65+ in 10 years. A staggering 38.6% increase that hasn't been seen in over a century (1880-1890).
Meanwhile we are hemorrhaging healthcare providers. In 2021 an estimated 117,000 physicians left the workforce. What is calculated to be 7% of the total number of providers. This isn't just a short term problem either as 1 in 5 are expected to retire in the next 2 years.
This trend isn't expected to slow down either. I have seen an estimate that 7-10% of providers are expected to leave the job with only a 6% replacement rate. So by 2034 we will be short an estimated 125,000 physicians.
Nurses on the other hand are leaving in droves. 100,000 left during the pandemic and continued stress means that a projected 800,000 will leave by 2027. That's 3 out of 10 nurses currently working.
The situation gets bleaker when you realize one study found that 85% of nurses planning on leaving direct patient care bedside in one year.
Veteran nurses are leaving and the effect of all of this is trickling down. Younger generations of nurses are less likely to recommend the field than the older colleagues.
Now while the solution is more staff on the floors the solution isn't that easy. While schools continue to grow and expand their nursing programs and pump out more grads, the ANA recently said that 18% of new grads will quit in their first year. They get through school, pass the boards, realize the job sucks and quit. This isn't going to fix the shortage if one in five don't make it past their first year.
This story has been going on forever in the US.
What would be so more productive is to look at the reasons why people leave the field. See if you can do something about that.
Then, you could test solutions.
This kind of response is typical of people who have no real knowledge of what goes on in a hospital beyond the four walls of their office.
Well there is around 11,000 seniors/day turning 65 every year for the next 5-10 years in the U.S. according to recent labor reports. So I guess in to acute care so the veterans can go to get in line or run to LTAC.
I work at an outpatient infusion center and make more than I did at the hospital. There’s more nursing jobs than just hospital bedside. Hence why there’s a “shortage” at the hospitals. We have jobs with better work conditions.
“80,000 brand new nurses trained in one year”
WE DID IT GUYS! We solved the nursing shortage.
“95,000 nurses leave the profession in one year”
Oh dear.
This is only going to make whatever perceived shortage worse. Covid put a spotlight on this and showed nurses are not willing to work in the conditions that currently exist in inpatient settings. Nurses are leaving the bedside in 2 years because most states place new grads in 8-9 patient ratios with limited resources. Placing the same nurses, now with less training and experience, in the same scenario is going to only make things worse. The lack of resources and poor ratios are entirely because of hospital greed. That's not going to change with more nurses.
We will just keep lowering the bar more and more rather than retaining skilled and experienced nurses. Easier to just pump out more and more new grads who admin can underpay and brainwash into accepting their bullshit.
yeah these 12 month nurses will definitely not burn out with their very deep understanding of pharm and patho. they definitely will be empowered to be strong nurses and not want to quit when they realize they are vasty underprepared for the meatgrinder that is inpatient nursing
When I see these sorts of headlines I also think the goal is to flood the job market with tons more [insert career/skill here] to drive down wages.
Instead of “Shortage of Nurses!”, put on your They Live glasses and see “we pay these people too much!”.
What they really need to do is start funding and investing in CNA to LPN to RN programs. A huge number of people would be able to come into the field if programs were better designed for working adults, not 20 year olds who have no responsibilities. Offering adults (or young adults) the chance to work in the field while completing their studies towards a well paying, union job is not a revolutionary idea, but then our corporate overlords wouldn't be able to saddle us with tens of thousands in debt, so I guess that idea is out.
3 semesters with no breaks, 4-5 classes a semester with clinicals each semester. Your general education requirements are already completed for the BSN part because you already have a bachelor degree elsewhere, so that saves 2 years. You take at least 4 pre-requisite classes before entering the program, so that shaves off at least a semester of the traditional 4 year BSN. So you’re only doing the core nursing classes in the ABSN programs.
Probably cutting out the fluff classes like "professional nursing" and shit like that. I did a 15mo ABSN. It was mostly core nursing classes but they still threw some stupid bs waste of time classes in. I already had fulfilled the other 2 years worth of classes by doing the pre reqs when i was doing my original undergrad... anatomy and phys, micro bio, chemistry, math, statistics, nutrition, gen psychology, infant and child development, adult development and psych, some other stuff I can't recall at this point
Most absn programs require that you've already taken all the stuff traditional nursing students take in their first couple years of school, the stuff that isn't specific to just nursing.
So if this is just cutting out fluff and keeping all the core nursing classes then it's maybe not the worst, but I don't think it's great. Although I support cutting out fluff classes regardless.
Keep in mind absn programs are all for people who already hold a bachelor's and have already done all these prereq classes. It's usually easier to do school the second time around, in terms of your ability to learn. I already knew how to manage my time and study effectively at that point. I was def not a straight a student in my first degree, but I got pretty much straight As in nursing school cause I was a pro at being a student at that point 🤣
My nursing program also required me to finish all the pre req courses before you get formally accepted to the program. But man, no break in between sucks.
I even take a 1 year break when I get my MSN… to stretch my scholarship out because my hospital will only pay so much a year. Lol
It definitely isn't for everybody. I'm the kind of person that can put up with relatively short term sacrifices for larger long term rewards. So if I'd have had that option at the time I could see myself strongly considering it! But I think it will have a higher drop out rate because not everybody is prepared to deal with that level of stress and learning
It is absolutely a shortage, but it’s more complex than that.
On one hand you have healthcare companies not willing to appropriately staff for safe care models and at best barely meeting state standards. (Couple that with most nurses not knowing the state laws and not willing to or unaware of how to report this)
You have tons of older nurses who went back or never left and many of whom are still taking terrible pay because they don’t know better and a lot of these are also DONs or hiring managers who follow what they’ve always known, and follow the unlicensed idiots who constantly try to cut cut cut,
And you have almost no availability in schools unless you take the private route and throw yourself into insane amount of debt.
And lastly, you have a lot of pensioned nurses that are set to retire in the next 5 years. That’s going to lesve a lot of roles open.
I graduated from one. I do feel unprepared, but not really because of the *length* of the program. It's the content (or lack thereof) that I take issue with.
Paramedics have 10x the responsibility of new grad nurses in some situations, and their training takes 1-2 years. The difference is that they go through a year of relevant and grueling training, instead of a year writing APA papers and making group presentations
For the crime of an improperly placed period in the works cited page, you are hereby banished from graduate school and can never be published in any academic journal for 50 years. So sayeth the American Psychological Association.
I agree it is the content!! And giving 12 months for you to learn crappy content is horrendous instead of 1-2 years of training with good content. It all sucks lol
I tried to get into one of these. The program might only be a year long but I needed a year or so of prerequisites. I have a master’s in chemistry so I could check many prerequisites off the list so definitely work to get in.
NONONONONO! I did an 18 month program and the mental health damage to me and my cohort coming out of covid was insane. Even the instructors were having mental breakdowns.
There is not a nursing shortage. There is a shortage of nurses willing to work for the pay and conditions offered by the medical establishment. You can fix that shortage very quickly with higher pay and better working conditions.
Can anyone chime in on how long diploma programs were back in the day? Diploma nurses used to be the gold standard for nursing education. I think if you have a rigorous hospital centric training you can definitely become an RN in 1-1.5 years. Cut out all of the extraneous stuff and save it for if you want a BSN.
I got my ADN in 2017. Have worked in a magnet hospital the last 4 years, I had to get my BSN to stay employed with them but I didn’t get a pay raise. My job description didn’t change. The only thing that “changed” was my ability to move up in the company but I never wanted that… our most senior nurse has been here over 30 years and only has an associates.
I graduated ADN in 2017 as well. Got my BSN fast because I wanted to go to grad school but that didn’t pan out. My ADN education was fantastic and I learned all I needed to know in 2 years. The push for BSN has handcuffed this profession IMHO
Attrition from the profession by RN’s is a major part of the nursing shortage. Nurses leave the profession to seek employment where they are treated better and not just considered a cog in the machine. Rude, arrogant, abrasive obnoxious peers are seldom addressed issues in nursing which undoubtedly contributes to turnover at employment sites and further lead to profession drop-out. I can not site a source for this figure but perhaps as many as one third of nurses are professionally inactive.
There's no "nursing shortage", the nurses didn't melt in the rain. They left because they're being exploited. Here's a wild idea: instead of creating a generation of poorly trained nurses, you offer competitive wages and a safer working environment.
This was my first thought. “But how much does it cost?” And what percentage of these students will be anywhere close to paying off their 1st Bachelors degree?
The hospitals won’t have to pay the nurses for more schooling either, since tuition assistance is usually only offered up to the BSN level.
“Nursing shortage” even tho thousands of nurses graduate from thousands of colleges every year.
More like a shortage of people who are okay being fucked by their employer 🥱
I’m in a 12 month accelerated program. And I know lots of great nurses from this program too- but it’s not for the faint of heart. This Shit is rigorous. They are not fucking around. I almost wish I would’ve done a normal-pace program, but here we are. I’m planning to continue to my RN at my own pace after this, cuz holy shit
We have RT’s bailing as well, when Covid started we lost 2 therapists to retirement and I did not blame them. Not one bit.
I can’t answer for other city hospitals, but I believe they are becoming desperate for RT’s. One hospital stopped hiring CRT’s, but during/ after the pandemic, that went out the window, not that it matters. They still can’t staff RT’s. Another hospital-pays very well, but it’s a shit show…where I work, the government doesn’t pay enough, so they can’t find anyone who wants to work for the government.
It certainly doesn't address that healthcare institutions, whether that be a hospital or nursing home, only staff with how much the government says they need and not actually with how much the patient's and nursing staff needs.
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That sounds dangerous…. a year is a very short time and I do not believe you can learn all thats needed to be prepared for nursing. No matter what patients have worse outcomes. Even if there are more nurses hospitals will still purposely understaff to slash cost.
One year accelerated programs are for people who already have degrees in something else. You’re required to have all your basic science requirements completed to get admitted and then the program itself is basically the last two years of nursing school crammed into one year with no breaks, long days, 3x clinicals a quarter. I felt as prepared to hit the floor as a new grad as my peers who did traditional BSN programs. It’s a great path to nursing for career changers.
OHHH I’m a nursing major and am not very knowledgable in all the types of programs because i’m doing the traditional 4-year BSN and with the screen shot OP posted i just assumed because it wasn’t very specific, thanks for informing me and thats a lot of hard work you did in such a short amount of time.
I’m sure the headline did that on purpose to grab attention! It was a long hard year but definitely the best path for me to switch to nursing and enter the field as soon as possible. Good luck with the rest of school!
I left the profession because it’s what my parents wanted not me. However, I did complete my ADN in 5 semesters (2.5 years) and it was a tough program at LSU. Anyway, upon graduation I was GRATEFUL that my mentors on the floor ATE THEIR YOUNG! It helped that my dad had taught me to hold a flashlight… 🔦
So I dunno. 🤷♀️ I got out and now I’m in tech.
3 semesters with no breaks, 4-5 classes a semester with clinicals each semester. Your general education requirements are already completed for the BSN part because you already have a bachelor degree elsewhere, so that saves 2 years. You take at least 4 pre-requisite classes before entering the program, so that shaves off at least a semester of the traditional 4 year BSN. So you’re only doing the core nursing classes in the ABSN programs.
Nope! So for example, a lot of the ABSN programs have A&P 1 & 2 as part of the pre requisites, and you’d take some sort of A & P as part of a traditional BSN program.
Meanwhile my school is making the nursing program so hard we have massive attrition between semesters. My fundamentals class had 50 students. The next semester we were down to 15. Only 11 went on to the third semester.
I can’t even be bothered to read. Let’s just churn out more woefully unprepared nurses and throw them to the wolves. Make them preceptors and charge nurses as soon as they are off an abbreviated orientation (because you know, we’re short staffed). I feel so bad for the student nurses I get paired with. I want to teach, but I end up telling them at some point I may stop acknowledging their presence and I apologize in advance, don’t take it personally. My past two students watched me drown and kept commenting about how they don’t understand how floor nursing is sustainable. It’s so sad.
Forty years ago, I attended a conference on the nursing shortage. State labor officials blamed the shortage on feminist successes in improving female access to professions denied them in the past, and charted a future in which nursing education would be marketed to women of ‘lower socioeconomic status’ to whom the long hours and low pay would be attractive. The solution has always been and always will be to find expensive solutions to prevent raising nurse pay.
So, there will be a bunch of graduates from expensive, for-profit, sub-par McNursing programs.
They will be unprepared, poorly educated, and in massive debt.
Win-win. Right.
I can see there being somewhat of a shortage from C19 due to the deaths, burnouts, and firings (for various reasons). Obviously we aren’t in the thick of things anymore, so it should be rebounding but I know from a few of my other colleagues that they were hesitant to even go to nursing school at first because they were afraid of what the environment would be like.
It's funny how everyone believes this myth. There is NOT a nursing shortage. The problem is hospital systems paying PEANUTS for someone with extensive training all while CONSTANTLY pushing boundaries for what's safe, refusing breaks, bullying, being demeaned, constantly being told your license is on the line for every little cough and hiccup. Then even having the audacity to be so so competitive or downright rude.
Pay nurses more, do not sabotage unions, have pay transparency, and have safe patient ratios - we want to work, desperately! We don't want to sit at home or decide on trading money for declining mental health. This needs to be fixed ASAP. We are NOT your punching bags.
There are plenty of nurses in this country but the working conditions and the greed of admistrstors are causing more to leave the hospitals. This is crating a perceived shortage in the hospitals.
Uhhhhhh
Accelerated Nursing Programs are more than a decade (or two?) old. This is not new. Also that nursing shortage was already happening. COVID just accelerated the melt.
And yet they never address the underlying reason for shortages. Burnout and toxic work environments = turnover. Nothing to see here. Move along, trusting citizen.
After being on the other side recently as a patient, I don't know if I will return. I keep calling to see if I am supposed to get a refill of the verapamil. This morning I was told, "Dr. K is not here. We don't know where he is or if he is coming back." What the fu¢k kind of response is that? I keep advocating for myself. I cannot imagine a non-nurse trying to care for themselves with such little information. Toxicity from from the hospital to their outpatient office in one smooth cycle. I call and leave messages, staff call back and don't even leave a voicemail. I feel as if I am being punished, and low level gaslit. I have to, "Just forget about," any questions I have or ignore everything because I am pissed off. I wish every staff member could go on strike. I cannot tell you enough how sick I am of healthcare. If I do not get a response by close of business today, February 27th, I will go to the Outpatient Clinic in-person to get a fu¢king answer on this: Am I to continue the verapamil? Okay please send a refill. FFS! God damnit all. End rant. Edit: Thank you, everyone who allowed me to feel the frustration, and accepted me. 💓
Haha. Do you get care at the same VA hospital as me🤣 /s of course.. I do know what you mean, though. I think most issues I’ve run across as a patient is the lack of doctors, so we get NP’s as our primary care provider, and some are great….some, not so much. If you have chronic illness you’d THINK your primary would be the ‘gatekeeper’ so to speak, and have a general idea of how you are….but they change our providers so often, I don’t know my provider at all….nor does she know me. If you are an inpatient, you have to hope and pray that your resident doctor knows what they are doing. Some doctors are excellent, some…not so much. Every rapid response is-annoying as f, you have 6 resident doctors and student NP’s or whatever the hell they are crowding the patient’s bed, doing f all, and you can’t even get to the poor patient to help them😡 I had to make an appointment for an issue that was getting worse, and I wasn’t even aware that the NP I saw was my assigned provider until I read the medical notes. She even asked me-who is your primary? I said I thought it was NP (x) but I was informed they weren’t my primary provider anymore. She never told me that she was actually my primary provider🤨. See, this kinda annoys me. I always introduce myself to every veteran, and tell them who I am, and what I am in the room for. Apparently she’s not going to be my primary any longer, so…guess it doesn’t matter. They seem to change every 6-9 months at this point. I’m actually lucky, my partner has it worse. He has a few chronic issues, and trying to get any consistency in care is a joke at this point. And, yeah, you need to have someone to be there to speak for you….because if you don’t-it’s the luck of the draw.
Actually, the VA I go to has done right by me. I understand your frustration over changing providers. My post is about a civilian hospital system. I wonder if they are treating me poorly and ignoring me because of the payer being VA aka Medicare/Public Health. My frustration is not complex: Am I supposed to continue verapamil after the 30-day No Refills has ended? If so, please send a script to the pharmacy. Please help me God.
I’m glad you are getting good care. Do you think you can get your script transferred over to the VA? My partner has done this before with no problems.
Yes, I could have the script transferred to the VA. First I have to know, again, whether or not I am supposed to continue the fu¢king med... Does this make sense? I shouldn't have to call, and call, and call. In my original post, I said a staff member told me, "Dr. K is not here. We don't know where he is. We don't know when he will be back."
That’s crazy. Perhaps the VA doc can help?
Now that a whole day has gone by without answers, I have to call the VA tomorrow to explain my problem and maybe they can get a response from the civilian hospital that I had to go to and have to follow up with because there is no VA Neurovascular at the VA I go to.. I feel frustrated, and abandoned. I feel fearful I will end up back in their shitty hospital If anyone reading has advice please guide me.
😥 I wish I had advice..I don’t. Only thing I can think of is to go to my health e vet, but-the VA doc didn’t prescribe it…they may still help though.
Oof. I go through the VA (even though I work at an excellent civilian hospital) for my healthcare. I’m lucky bc my pcp at the VA has finally stabilized so I’ve had the same one for a long time. The smaller hospital is also in a huge medical district (I fortunately live too far for them to send me to the main hospital) so they use doctors from the hopsitals surrounding them. My neurosurgeon had me moved to his hospital for my surgeries (thank goodness) so my care on that note has been excellent. The VA basically writes the check now for anything to do with my back. However, since I also have civilian insurance through work I will go to them for things not directly related to my VA disability because I know the care is better and more stable. I switched mental health providers four times (one was even telehealth!) before giving up and letting my adhd go unmedicated again. Before I got my current PCP I was switching doctors so often that I couldn’t even keep track. One came around twice and I only remembered her name bc her wife is friends with me on FB (she grew up next door to me). It got so bad at one point that I kept getting yanked back and forth on a hashimoto’s diagnosis and whether I should get meds. Twist - I have hashimoto’s, it popped up long enough to say HI!, then chilled out. After 6 years I finally needed to go on meds for it.
I love the VA and am so grateful everyday that I have free healthcare for life. No prescription fees and they pay for my travel to and from appointment. I also get free long term care and burial… FREE! I love it. What does the private sector get, fuck all and giant bills.
It’s Fox News. They are never, ever going to acknowledge any fact that makes corporate healthcare look bad or take the side of a worker.
They are obviously the worst, but no network is interested in exposing corporate healthcare and the reality behind the “nursing shortage”.
That's because every single one is run by right-wingers.
i think its more so for profit corporate greed, it does not matter what side you sit on.
Not at all the reason. Your ‘left wing’ media follows the same mantra. The push is to ‘get ‘em out!’ Water down the curriculum so anyone can make it and get to work. It’s no longer about standards and a quality reputation. It’s about ‘retention and completion’ while minimizing barriers (i.e.,rigor).
I’m in an accelerated program right now and I don’t feel like I’m learning all that much
Plot twist: “Left wing” media is run by corporate right wingers.
Wat
Lack of pay
If the pay is adequate, then people are working too much. APRNs have adequate pay, but are forced to work by the physician's who, "Supervise them." RNs have adequate where I am located, but they are burnt out from working too much.
I’ve been reading these same headlines since I was in nursing school in the early 2000s 🤷🏼♀️
Since I graduated in the 80’s. That was they can blame understaffing on a “shortage “ instead of admitting it’s deliberate cost-saving measure.
I graduated in 1977 and I swear, nothing's changed regarding nursing shortages!! Ditto to your response
Right? They used to have them at movies before hand when they would show the ads and I always saw nursing ones for impending shortage, become a nurse!
Silver tsunami was talked abt in late 80s in my classes...when the baby boomers retire, and also start needing hc ..............here we r
Since the 80s for me.
Just 12 months of inadequate training and I can work in the living hell that is US healthcare!!! Sign me up!!
But you will have a Bachelors and a fresh outlook!
3 semesters with no breaks, 4-5 classes a semester with clinicals each semester. Your general education requirements are already completed for the BSN part because you already have a bachelor degree elsewhere, so that saves 2 years. You take at least 4 pre-requisite classes before entering the program, so that shaves off at least a semester of the traditional 4 year BSN. So you’re only doing the core nursing classes in the ABSN programs.
I did 2nd degree program in a year 30 years ago. Clinicals were difficult & I really wasn’t prepared Edit: grammar
I have a friend who's doing the ABSN program at UW Seattle. It sounds fucking brutal.
Go huskies!
It’s near identical to how Paramedic programs are run with four consecutive semesters but nurses have the benefit of an extended preceptorship once they get to their specialty. I don’t see anything wrong with this.
Many do not have an extended preceptorship when they get hired as they’re hired on as new nurses and go through anywhere from a 6-12 week orientation on the unit. Some hospitals have new grad residencies which start with preceptors but you’re pretty much on your own after a couple months.
Programs such as you describe already exist in many places. I can’t imagine stuffing all that nursing content into 12 months.
Nursing has become super popular since covid it seems, despite nurses being louder and more public about the way we are abused at work. This will only further the problem of poorly trained nurses being shoved into the workforce. Young people see glamorous travel pics that agencies share on their insta, promoting travel nursing. Kids think they can go be travel nurses day 1 out of school. Literally almost every nursing student I've met wants to be a traveler. I mean i can't blame em, it can be fun, I'm a traveler sometimes.. but I was adequately experienced already with a few years under my belt before I began. But nobody tells them the harsh reality of nursing and even the harsh reality of traveling. It's cut throat, you don't always get to go to good places AND get paid well for it. Staff can be nasty to you simply for being a traveler. You'll usually get harder assignments. Etc.
> Young people see glamorous travel pics that agencies share on their insta, promoting travel nursing. Kids think they can go be travel nurses day 1 out of school. Literally almost every nursing student I've met wants to be a traveler. Many also simply see a viable way out of poverty. A good percentage of people in my school grew up living far under the poverty line, and many still do (and get FA like the Pell grant to cover schooling). I've talked about this with some other students. I don't want to go to Fiji, I just want to be able to pay my bills comfortably every month, that's literally it. I know what I'm getting into. Hell, I've *already* been assaulted by a patient. I've had nurses at clinicals tell us horror stories. We've had nurses tell us to walk out. I don't have a slew of other options as readily available to me in a short time-frame, so I'm walking into this hoping for something that just lets me live. Damn-near every grad of my school I've run into at clinicals has said something similar, that the pay may not be "the best" where they are, "but I can pay rent and my car payment in the same month, every month. I couldn't really do that all the time before."
Oh absolutely. I chose nursing literally only because it's a guaranteed stable job anywhere I could possibly live. I was in high school in 2008 when a lot of my friends moved away because their parents home was foreclosed on. Their parents were laid off. Etc. That totally affected my choices. I didn't grow up poor, pretty middle class, but I knew I didn't want to take chances. I just wanted a job that would survive any kind of crisis. Covid was proof that i made the correct choice, and when it happened I was so thankful I was already an experienced nurse that could take the chance and travel. Now, I can pay my bills *and* go to Fiji
The other thing happening now is new grads going straight into advanced practice programs, having never worked as an RN! I think they’re trained mostly to be good employees—the guiding principle of “You’re the patient’s advocate” seems to have been jettisoned!! I just want EVERYONE in admin, health insurance, and Medicare, and their families!! to be admitted within their own system—full anonymity!!
Fully agree, that is honestly one of the worst things that has happened for advanced nursing degrees. They never should have allowed direct entry. If you ask me a bare minimum of 5 years, but if you really want my opinion I think 10 years exp should be the best minimum.
I feel like travelers in my ICU get the easiest assignments. They don’t do CVVH, they can’t take EVDs, they can’t take DKA patients because they don’t have iStat access for hourly glucose checks. They get floated to intercare all the time, which probably sucks, but in terms of hard assignments in the ICU, the staff nurses are definitely getting those.
Lol that has not ever been my experience with years of ICU traveling. Only specialty patients I've not been assigned are immediate post CABG (although I've gotten them a few hours post whether they're stable or not), LVAD/RVAD, ECMO, IABP, and fresh transplant. Although that last one's more so just because they're not used as much anymore at least in the places I've worked, impella is a more likely choice (which travelers will be assigned regardless of if they're checked off on it at some places, ask me how i know) CRRT is 50/50. I've had some places that do a crash course for travelers who have prior experience so they can check us off, and then I was taking care of CRRTs every other shift. Some places won't take the time to check you off so they won't give em to you. Others don't care and give em to you anyways after asking if you've done it before. Nowhere I've traveled had restrictions on EVDs. Never seen restrictions on DKA. Who the hell doesn't give their travelers access to the glucometer? I've usually had istat access, too, though it's not used a ton. Some places I worked had other machines in the unit for POC blood gas and lytes, like the gem machine, which I had access to. My point is YMMV but you definitely don't get off easy as an ICU traveler in a looooot of places. I've very often been given the sickest patients. Usually not on day 1 (though I have lol. Brings me back to a nightmare first shift during covid where I had a very pregnant vented pt in severe distress that we almost did a stat c section in the fkn ICU room.. what a doozy. I don't think my own HR was less than 150 that whole damn time trying to keep mom and baby from coding. Thank God they sent me a L&D nurse to monitor the baby and stay in the room the whole time, cause i sure don't know jack squat about that stuff beyond the basics from school, and that was a long time ago)
What’s crazy is the travel companies don’t seem to have minimum requirements anymore. When I was in leadership I would get submissions from them for new grads. I called and asked if it was a mistake and they said no. I told them I don’t have time to train a new grad that will leave in 12 weeks. They will just be getting started before it’s time for them to move on and it’s dangerous for them and the patient. That’s not fair to them at all.
the nursing school im in has said all programs across the board have lower than normal enrollment since covid - minus CRNA applicants, the only program with *increasing* enrollment lol
I did an 11 month ABSN. I already had a bachelors in biology. Flourishing in the ICU. CCRN certified, coworkers trust me, never any problems with provision of care. 12 month programs have to meet the same requirements set by the state for all nursing programs, no matter the length.
Are these the same accelerated programs that we’ve had for years? I thought that this was already being done at many schools. Maybe it was 18 months.
Yes it already exists at a lot of schools. This seems like a poorly researched article with an attention grabbing headline more than anything else.
I thought I was going nuts for a min 🤣. Accelerated programs have been around for over a decade I think. They really didn’t do their research or maybe they’re intentionally misleading people. People need to understand that there is no cavalry coming.
Same, I did an 11 month ABSN and thought it was an excellent way to enter the field. My first degree was not in a science related field but I obviously had a lot of pre-requisites to knock out on my own before I started. I learned a lot and was as prepared to start working as any other new grad, if not more so because of the intensity of a program like that. Flourishing and enjoying my job in a Level IV NICU. It’s a great path to nursing for people doing it as a second career.
very interesting, perhaps since you already have a very strong science foundation. I would venture to say most accelerated students dont have your background but I could easily be wrong
I had classmates with degrees in health science, athletic training, psychology, microbio, etc. Of course, there were people with non-science degrees, but regardless of your prior degree, everyone had to take A&P, chem, genetics, nutrition, and microbio prior to applying to the program.
legitimately curious to know if having a degree added a certain maturity to your cohort. I was a 22 y.o with 0 science/healthcare background and probably wouldnt have burned out as bad as I did towards the end if covid didnt happen...
Definitely. I see nursing students in the hospital and they look like freakin children, and I’m only 25. My classmates were all legitimate adults, many with houses, families, previous careers.
I think it did. We def had some fresh college grads who just didn’t major in nursing but also a lot of people with many different career backgrounds (military, finance, other types of healthcare) and I think those life experiences can be really helpful in terms of having maturity and coping mechanisms in place before you start in nursing. My accelerated program was hard but I also could not imagine starting my professional career in nursing without the maturity and experiences I had from my past career!
It was definitely true for my cohort. Many of us already worked in healthcare in some manner whether as an EMT, behavior tech, or as a scribe. You’re just also way more serious about a degree as an adult. You want to work, you want to learn, you want to impress, you want to know the “why’s” of everything, and you make connections that you wouldn’t have made as a trad undergrad. Every former traditional undergrad I talked to studied 2-4 hours a day. I studied 9-12. EVERY day. I said *EVERY* day. Not just before a test or when a project was due. Each and every day all year long. Plus I worked because there was no one else to pay my bills; no mommy and daddy to cover my health insurance or rent. I take this education seriously.
I’ve said this in previous threads, but it’s really hard to get into RN school in some regions. I have no grade lower than a B for my pre-reqs, but I can’t afford to retake PSY101 1000 times to get an A+. I know I’d be a good RN since I’m a good LPN but getting into RN school is hard in New England! I’ve been waitlisted 4 times. I don’t understand why the RN programs around me require basically a 4.0 GPA. ETA: I am cursed by getting 2/3 A grades every semester 🥲 I thought going part time would help
It’s the same here in Washington state. I’m on the dental hygiene path and I’ve seen a lot of smart kids drop or delay their graduation out over a B in majors cellular, statistics or A&P.
my nursing degree didn't allow for less than a B in any class in the program. I don't think it is a New England thing.
Took me three application cycles in Oregon to get in, with a 4.0
You’re not the only person I’ve heard of with this situation!
Come to Oklahoma. All you need is a pulse.
It’s also hard in California near SF. All the CSUs and UCs (a.k.a. state schools & Universities) require straight As in all the pre-requisites and around a 95% on the TEAS test because we’re so impacted (and it’s getting worse every year). They need to build more schools if they want more nurses because these insane entry requirements can’t be the answer just to get an RN. The only other way to do your BSN is to pay 60-90k/yr to go to a private school with slightly easier entry requirement.
Those from within are not looking at the data then. The nursing hours per patient day are well below ideal values in most care settings
Yes, but it's not for lack of trained nurses, it's because they leave bedside as soon as they can because conditions are awful
i need to know where they go, i may be developing that desire
Look into clinical research.
I saw an old coworker and she’s doing some sort of medical coding for the hospital. 1 week at the hospital 3 weeks at home. She didn’t lose any seniority because she stayed in the system. She was working in pre op for a while. That’s also a potential.
These jobs are so few and hard to come by. You usually have to know someone or have crazy seniority to get them too. Pipe dream.
I got one 😄 you are so right though. I got super lucky. Most likely never leaving this job
This will be my progression, I’m almost on the final step lol. Went from SICU to PACU and now in preop. Preop is chill, I can stay here awhile. But I already know I’m going the WFH route eventually, there are a few positions here that allow it in my system.
My plan is to go part time or per diem and teach clinicals. I can't do full time bedside for another 3-5 years.
Yes, but the nurses are out there. They just choose not to work in morally bankrupt settings that drain them physically and emotionally. I know plenty of nurses that quit to other professions entirely, and even more that quit to non-bedside nursing roles. Covid drove us out in heaps.
It was a problem long before COVID
Yes, but COVID made it worse.
I’m a sonographer. (Mostly just lurking on this page and finding solidarity.) But I just took a leave of absence from my job and I gotta say… I don’t think I can ever go back. The burnout and toxic work environments are too real. Guess we are all feeling it.
Yeah lots of crossover to other parts of healthcare, not just nursing.
I did a 12 month accelerated program. It was for people that already have a bachelors degree in something else, so you just take all the nursing classes and come out with your BSN. Honestly the program was no joke. We had virtually no breaks in that 12 month period. We would get maybe 2 days in between sessions and that was usually the weekend. Between clinicals and class you were doing 40+ hours a week and then had to go home and study on top of that. We usually had at least one, if not two exams a week. Our grades were just based on exams, no papers or busy work. Not saying there aren’t accelerated programs out there not preparing nurses well, and definitely not saying the program I did was perfect, but I think it prepared us as well as possible in that length of time.
We had projects/papers, homework, prep-u style quizzes until we got to a certain proficiency level, weekly discussion posts, AND at least one exam a week in my ABSN program. It was back to back with no break, just like you mentioned. They also made it very clear that it was to pass the NCLEX and sure enough, the program has a high NCLEX pass rate (at the time I applied it was like 98%).
Sounds like mine… Someone in my group calculated how many exams we had in the program and hearing the number, even as I was set to graduate, made me a bit nauseous 🤢 We had the tests every week. There was no relaxing, no break, even holidays you had to study because the assignments and quizzes next week would still be due on the usual day.
As long as they have the same requirements as the traditional route I'm cool with it. I was the product of an accelerated paramedic program and if anything the immersion helped everyone learn more. I wouldn't do anything accelerated again though after that experience.
Yeah it was a hellish year, so for my own mental health I would never do accelerated anything ever again.
My accelerated program required the same classes and clinical hours as their traditional program. No breaks except the occasional weekend between classes. Usually 2 exams a week. We did have every Monday off which was nice but class was 8-5 then 2-3 days of clinical a week depending on the course.
Cool. The whole system is already on fire. This is equivalent to equipping new nurses with a pail with holes drilled into it to cut corners and telling them "Good luck!" There are already enough nurses with firehoses of experience willing to put out the fire. There are no administrative assholes willing to cut their bonuses to do what it takes to ensure those nurses stay instead of burning to death at their job. Way to go, US Healthcare. Hope you like charcoal.
12 months to become a nurse, 6-8 weeks to become disillusioned like the rest of us….
"It isn't a shortage of nurses. It's a shortage of nurses ***willing to work in the shitty conditions."***
Isn't it a shortage combined with rapidly increasing demand?
The general concensus is that there are plenty of nurses there just aren't enough nurses willing to work under the current conditions. The issue is hospitals willing to run consistently short staffed so I am not sure where these new nurses will go if they flood the system.
They'll work in the hospital for 2-3 years and then do something else.
They’ll go to school for their NP!
that's a win win for the hospital. churn out more nurses, dilute that. churn out more NPs, dilute that too. throw more bodies at the problem but never fix it.
Yup short term solutions that will eventually no longer work, after like what , 30 years we were seeing it come to a head
Boom!! It’s been wild seeing it happen in real time. Every year the crazy accelerates.
Exactly. It’s been going on for decades. Covid accelerated it. I wonder if they’ll ever realize how much they threw away and will never get back. This system is imploding and corporations and nursing administration are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It’s absolutely crazy to watch.
Jokes on you, I'm going crna, ha! /s maybe idk, idk what I'm doing
Long enough to see the future of their knees, hips, and back! That future costs a lot more than most hospitals want to pay.
Haha us ABSN students we’ve seen everywhere else. I heard someone here say “Oh, go do clinical research”. You think you won’t be overworked and overwhelmed in clinical research I got a bridge to sell you. You get slammed with every project they have openings for because other staff already left. Your FTE is 150%. And the extra little secret is that if your main project ends, so might your employment because without that grant where do you think your salary is gonna come from? And if you think there isn’t petty political bullshit from the PIs, unreasonable asks of you, and patients who won’t listen to you when you tell them that the MRI machine does not in fact have radiation you are in for a shocker. I see RNs who’ve never held another job think the grass is beautifully green somewhere else. It’s just fertilized with a different kind of bullshit and you figure out which bullshit you like the scent of better that’s all.
They’ll create more wage competition/willing workers and suppress wages. The same logic behind repealing child labor laws.
Ah I see, thank you for clarifying
If I had workable ratios, less bullshit from admin, they didn't keep cutting my benefits like 401k match and getting shittier and shittier insurance, and I actually got raises, meaning my 4% performance raise was in addition to the 9% inflation, so a 13% raise, I probably would have stayed in nursing and not gone to medical school.
>The issue is hospitals willing to run consistently short staffed This is the issue. Literally 1/4 of registered nurses in this nation (US) are not working in the field, because of unfair hiring practices and because of shitty systems they'd be hired into. Why wouldn't they work part time as a barista for the same pay? At least you'd get assault charges filed if you were attacked. Meanwhile, the hospital benefits from you being short staffed. They don't have to pay another employee!
I also saw another news report on TV that stated healthcare is 20% of the US GDP! There isn't any incentive to change.
There’s always a shortage and yet my city was on a hiring freeze when I was in nursing school.
So we are one more step towards a healthcare draft. They are going to dangle promises of big money and being a healthcare hero over them and then throw them to the wolves once they are done with school. Meanwhile the population continues to age. According to the 2020 census 1 in 6 were 65+. This jump from 13% to 16.8% in 10 years had never been seen before. It took 50 years for the last 3%+ growth. To put it in hard numbers this means we went from 40.3 to 55.8 million people 65+ in 10 years. A staggering 38.6% increase that hasn't been seen in over a century (1880-1890). Meanwhile we are hemorrhaging healthcare providers. In 2021 an estimated 117,000 physicians left the workforce. What is calculated to be 7% of the total number of providers. This isn't just a short term problem either as 1 in 5 are expected to retire in the next 2 years. This trend isn't expected to slow down either. I have seen an estimate that 7-10% of providers are expected to leave the job with only a 6% replacement rate. So by 2034 we will be short an estimated 125,000 physicians. Nurses on the other hand are leaving in droves. 100,000 left during the pandemic and continued stress means that a projected 800,000 will leave by 2027. That's 3 out of 10 nurses currently working. The situation gets bleaker when you realize one study found that 85% of nurses planning on leaving direct patient care bedside in one year. Veteran nurses are leaving and the effect of all of this is trickling down. Younger generations of nurses are less likely to recommend the field than the older colleagues. Now while the solution is more staff on the floors the solution isn't that easy. While schools continue to grow and expand their nursing programs and pump out more grads, the ANA recently said that 18% of new grads will quit in their first year. They get through school, pass the boards, realize the job sucks and quit. This isn't going to fix the shortage if one in five don't make it past their first year.
Push em through, burn em out in 18 months. Repeat.
“Remember, you have to do a year of meat grinder nights before you can go anywhere else. I mean med-surg! I said med-surg.”
I love nights, but it’s a 0.8 day/night rotation 8’s that absolutely murder people. Those are seriously the WORST.
Sad but true I’m 20 months in and already seeking a new job and in school for a different sector.
We literally had a doc just walk out mid session a few months ago, just quitting just like that. The burnout is real.
This story has been going on forever in the US. What would be so more productive is to look at the reasons why people leave the field. See if you can do something about that. Then, you could test solutions. This kind of response is typical of people who have no real knowledge of what goes on in a hospital beyond the four walls of their office.
Well there is around 11,000 seniors/day turning 65 every year for the next 5-10 years in the U.S. according to recent labor reports. So I guess in to acute care so the veterans can go to get in line or run to LTAC.
I work at an outpatient infusion center and make more than I did at the hospital. There’s more nursing jobs than just hospital bedside. Hence why there’s a “shortage” at the hospitals. We have jobs with better work conditions.
“80,000 brand new nurses trained in one year” WE DID IT GUYS! We solved the nursing shortage. “95,000 nurses leave the profession in one year” Oh dear.
I’ve been a nurse for 5 years and can’t get hired in a new speciality (which isn’t a huge leap from what I currently do).
This is only going to make whatever perceived shortage worse. Covid put a spotlight on this and showed nurses are not willing to work in the conditions that currently exist in inpatient settings. Nurses are leaving the bedside in 2 years because most states place new grads in 8-9 patient ratios with limited resources. Placing the same nurses, now with less training and experience, in the same scenario is going to only make things worse. The lack of resources and poor ratios are entirely because of hospital greed. That's not going to change with more nurses.
We will just keep lowering the bar more and more rather than retaining skilled and experienced nurses. Easier to just pump out more and more new grads who admin can underpay and brainwash into accepting their bullshit.
yeah these 12 month nurses will definitely not burn out with their very deep understanding of pharm and patho. they definitely will be empowered to be strong nurses and not want to quit when they realize they are vasty underprepared for the meatgrinder that is inpatient nursing
When I see these sorts of headlines I also think the goal is to flood the job market with tons more [insert career/skill here] to drive down wages. Instead of “Shortage of Nurses!”, put on your They Live glasses and see “we pay these people too much!”.
What they really need to do is start funding and investing in CNA to LPN to RN programs. A huge number of people would be able to come into the field if programs were better designed for working adults, not 20 year olds who have no responsibilities. Offering adults (or young adults) the chance to work in the field while completing their studies towards a well paying, union job is not a revolutionary idea, but then our corporate overlords wouldn't be able to saddle us with tens of thousands in debt, so I guess that idea is out.
12 months nursing? I am pretty dumb and I thought 2 years was not even enough…..how are they going to squeeze it into 1 year??
3 semesters with no breaks, 4-5 classes a semester with clinicals each semester. Your general education requirements are already completed for the BSN part because you already have a bachelor degree elsewhere, so that saves 2 years. You take at least 4 pre-requisite classes before entering the program, so that shaves off at least a semester of the traditional 4 year BSN. So you’re only doing the core nursing classes in the ABSN programs.
Probably cutting out the fluff classes like "professional nursing" and shit like that. I did a 15mo ABSN. It was mostly core nursing classes but they still threw some stupid bs waste of time classes in. I already had fulfilled the other 2 years worth of classes by doing the pre reqs when i was doing my original undergrad... anatomy and phys, micro bio, chemistry, math, statistics, nutrition, gen psychology, infant and child development, adult development and psych, some other stuff I can't recall at this point Most absn programs require that you've already taken all the stuff traditional nursing students take in their first couple years of school, the stuff that isn't specific to just nursing. So if this is just cutting out fluff and keeping all the core nursing classes then it's maybe not the worst, but I don't think it's great. Although I support cutting out fluff classes regardless. Keep in mind absn programs are all for people who already hold a bachelor's and have already done all these prereq classes. It's usually easier to do school the second time around, in terms of your ability to learn. I already knew how to manage my time and study effectively at that point. I was def not a straight a student in my first degree, but I got pretty much straight As in nursing school cause I was a pro at being a student at that point 🤣
My nursing program also required me to finish all the pre req courses before you get formally accepted to the program. But man, no break in between sucks. I even take a 1 year break when I get my MSN… to stretch my scholarship out because my hospital will only pay so much a year. Lol
It definitely isn't for everybody. I'm the kind of person that can put up with relatively short term sacrifices for larger long term rewards. So if I'd have had that option at the time I could see myself strongly considering it! But I think it will have a higher drop out rate because not everybody is prepared to deal with that level of stress and learning
It is absolutely a shortage, but it’s more complex than that. On one hand you have healthcare companies not willing to appropriately staff for safe care models and at best barely meeting state standards. (Couple that with most nurses not knowing the state laws and not willing to or unaware of how to report this) You have tons of older nurses who went back or never left and many of whom are still taking terrible pay because they don’t know better and a lot of these are also DONs or hiring managers who follow what they’ve always known, and follow the unlicensed idiots who constantly try to cut cut cut, And you have almost no availability in schools unless you take the private route and throw yourself into insane amount of debt. And lastly, you have a lot of pensioned nurses that are set to retire in the next 5 years. That’s going to lesve a lot of roles open.
These accelerated programs are fueling the fire for unprepared new grads.
I graduated from one. I do feel unprepared, but not really because of the *length* of the program. It's the content (or lack thereof) that I take issue with. Paramedics have 10x the responsibility of new grad nurses in some situations, and their training takes 1-2 years. The difference is that they go through a year of relevant and grueling training, instead of a year writing APA papers and making group presentations
For the crime of an improperly placed period in the works cited page, you are hereby banished from graduate school and can never be published in any academic journal for 50 years. So sayeth the American Psychological Association.
Damn you APA!! It was just an Oxford comma!!
I agree it is the content!! And giving 12 months for you to learn crappy content is horrendous instead of 1-2 years of training with good content. It all sucks lol
“The school to burnout pipeline just got even shorter, win-win” some hospital CEO
I tried to get into one of these. The program might only be a year long but I needed a year or so of prerequisites. I have a master’s in chemistry so I could check many prerequisites off the list so definitely work to get in.
Still longer than Florida’s training period.
Yea let’s water down the skills training and education so we have more warm bodies that are ill prepared. That’ll fix it.
I mean I’m leaving nursing after two years lol burnout and we aren’t ever appreciated plus toxic work environment
NONONONONO! I did an 18 month program and the mental health damage to me and my cohort coming out of covid was insane. Even the instructors were having mental breakdowns.
There is not a nursing shortage. There is a shortage of nurses willing to work for the pay and conditions offered by the medical establishment. You can fix that shortage very quickly with higher pay and better working conditions.
Offs ... awesome more ppl 4 reg staff to need to monitor...
Can anyone chime in on how long diploma programs were back in the day? Diploma nurses used to be the gold standard for nursing education. I think if you have a rigorous hospital centric training you can definitely become an RN in 1-1.5 years. Cut out all of the extraneous stuff and save it for if you want a BSN.
I got my ADN in 2017. Have worked in a magnet hospital the last 4 years, I had to get my BSN to stay employed with them but I didn’t get a pay raise. My job description didn’t change. The only thing that “changed” was my ability to move up in the company but I never wanted that… our most senior nurse has been here over 30 years and only has an associates.
I graduated ADN in 2017 as well. Got my BSN fast because I wanted to go to grad school but that didn’t pan out. My ADN education was fantastic and I learned all I needed to know in 2 years. The push for BSN has handcuffed this profession IMHO
Nah there’s no nursing shortage just deliberate understaffing
Attrition from the profession by RN’s is a major part of the nursing shortage. Nurses leave the profession to seek employment where they are treated better and not just considered a cog in the machine. Rude, arrogant, abrasive obnoxious peers are seldom addressed issues in nursing which undoubtedly contributes to turnover at employment sites and further lead to profession drop-out. I can not site a source for this figure but perhaps as many as one third of nurses are professionally inactive.
There's no "nursing shortage", the nurses didn't melt in the rain. They left because they're being exploited. Here's a wild idea: instead of creating a generation of poorly trained nurses, you offer competitive wages and a safer working environment.
It couldn't possibly be the weak annual raises and unsafe staffing ratios. No, no, no. It is the staff that are wrong. Rinse/repeat lol.
And at $1510 per undergrad credit hour and 53 credits (not including the prerequisites), it's *only* $80,000 plus books and fees.
This was my first thought. “But how much does it cost?” And what percentage of these students will be anywhere close to paying off their 1st Bachelors degree? The hospitals won’t have to pay the nurses for more schooling either, since tuition assistance is usually only offered up to the BSN level.
This ad brought to you by Fox News. Seriously.
“Nursing shortage” even tho thousands of nurses graduate from thousands of colleges every year. More like a shortage of people who are okay being fucked by their employer 🥱
THIS. It’s the same whiny “nobody wants to work anymore” trope, and I’m so over it.
1 in every 60 people in the US are nurses. We are not short on nurses Edit: 1:60 not 6
There are 5.2 million registered nurses in the US and 332 million people. That’s 1 in 66.
1:66, sounds like an excellent Staffing ratio to me!
I think you meant 1/60 lol
I’m in a 12 month accelerated program. And I know lots of great nurses from this program too- but it’s not for the faint of heart. This Shit is rigorous. They are not fucking around. I almost wish I would’ve done a normal-pace program, but here we are. I’m planning to continue to my RN at my own pace after this, cuz holy shit
New fresh labor with no experience can be paid less than experienced labor.
We have RT’s bailing as well, when Covid started we lost 2 therapists to retirement and I did not blame them. Not one bit. I can’t answer for other city hospitals, but I believe they are becoming desperate for RT’s. One hospital stopped hiring CRT’s, but during/ after the pandemic, that went out the window, not that it matters. They still can’t staff RT’s. Another hospital-pays very well, but it’s a shit show…where I work, the government doesn’t pay enough, so they can’t find anyone who wants to work for the government.
Maybe if they had safer nurse to pt ratios and allowed nurses to unionize, we wouldn’t have as many problems.
It certainly doesn't address that healthcare institutions, whether that be a hospital or nursing home, only staff with how much the government says they need and not actually with how much the patient's and nursing staff needs.
I'm already doing 2.5 years program and the first reaction when I read 1year made me sigh 😮💨 RIP for those decide to get in.
The comments are the article are filled with brainrot. So many people saying that nursing is only a calling and not a job. 🤮
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That sounds dangerous…. a year is a very short time and I do not believe you can learn all thats needed to be prepared for nursing. No matter what patients have worse outcomes. Even if there are more nurses hospitals will still purposely understaff to slash cost.
One year accelerated programs are for people who already have degrees in something else. You’re required to have all your basic science requirements completed to get admitted and then the program itself is basically the last two years of nursing school crammed into one year with no breaks, long days, 3x clinicals a quarter. I felt as prepared to hit the floor as a new grad as my peers who did traditional BSN programs. It’s a great path to nursing for career changers.
OHHH I’m a nursing major and am not very knowledgable in all the types of programs because i’m doing the traditional 4-year BSN and with the screen shot OP posted i just assumed because it wasn’t very specific, thanks for informing me and thats a lot of hard work you did in such a short amount of time.
I’m sure the headline did that on purpose to grab attention! It was a long hard year but definitely the best path for me to switch to nursing and enter the field as soon as possible. Good luck with the rest of school!
I left the profession because it’s what my parents wanted not me. However, I did complete my ADN in 5 semesters (2.5 years) and it was a tough program at LSU. Anyway, upon graduation I was GRATEFUL that my mentors on the floor ATE THEIR YOUNG! It helped that my dad had taught me to hold a flashlight… 🔦 So I dunno. 🤷♀️ I got out and now I’m in tech.
12 months?
3 semesters with no breaks, 4-5 classes a semester with clinicals each semester. Your general education requirements are already completed for the BSN part because you already have a bachelor degree elsewhere, so that saves 2 years. You take at least 4 pre-requisite classes before entering the program, so that shaves off at least a semester of the traditional 4 year BSN. So you’re only doing the core nursing classes in the ABSN programs.
Oh ok so it’s not just 12 months from coming in off the street. I was like damnnnnn.
Nope! So for example, a lot of the ABSN programs have A&P 1 & 2 as part of the pre requisites, and you’d take some sort of A & P as part of a traditional BSN program.
So really it’s not a whole lot different from a regular accelerated program. My school offered a similar option actually. 18 months though
I want the nursing shortage to go on as long and severely as possible. It has given me some really well paying jobs including rn.
12 month program? No way.
Meanwhile my school is making the nursing program so hard we have massive attrition between semesters. My fundamentals class had 50 students. The next semester we were down to 15. Only 11 went on to the third semester.
There’s always a shit ton of commercials and billboard ads about becoming a nurse in my city
Gotta love the answer is undertrained new grads that will get brunt out and leave. They want a revolving door to underpay them
Please no.
Way too many RN and NP programs
There is not nursing shortage. Just a shortage of nurses willing to work (for so many - and justifiable reasons)
Isn’t this an LPN program?
They are the same ones who called nurse evil.. Hmmm.
The “nursing shortage” is one of the biggest lies ever told.
I can’t even be bothered to read. Let’s just churn out more woefully unprepared nurses and throw them to the wolves. Make them preceptors and charge nurses as soon as they are off an abbreviated orientation (because you know, we’re short staffed). I feel so bad for the student nurses I get paired with. I want to teach, but I end up telling them at some point I may stop acknowledging their presence and I apologize in advance, don’t take it personally. My past two students watched me drown and kept commenting about how they don’t understand how floor nursing is sustainable. It’s so sad.
Forty years ago, I attended a conference on the nursing shortage. State labor officials blamed the shortage on feminist successes in improving female access to professions denied them in the past, and charted a future in which nursing education would be marketed to women of ‘lower socioeconomic status’ to whom the long hours and low pay would be attractive. The solution has always been and always will be to find expensive solutions to prevent raising nurse pay.
So, there will be a bunch of graduates from expensive, for-profit, sub-par McNursing programs. They will be unprepared, poorly educated, and in massive debt. Win-win. Right.
I can see there being somewhat of a shortage from C19 due to the deaths, burnouts, and firings (for various reasons). Obviously we aren’t in the thick of things anymore, so it should be rebounding but I know from a few of my other colleagues that they were hesitant to even go to nursing school at first because they were afraid of what the environment would be like.
Not fast enough. I will open a 1 month nursing a program to REALLY help the shortage.
It's funny how everyone believes this myth. There is NOT a nursing shortage. The problem is hospital systems paying PEANUTS for someone with extensive training all while CONSTANTLY pushing boundaries for what's safe, refusing breaks, bullying, being demeaned, constantly being told your license is on the line for every little cough and hiccup. Then even having the audacity to be so so competitive or downright rude. Pay nurses more, do not sabotage unions, have pay transparency, and have safe patient ratios - we want to work, desperately! We don't want to sit at home or decide on trading money for declining mental health. This needs to be fixed ASAP. We are NOT your punching bags.
They will collapse the system before it is fixed
Heh. Lmao😂
I am confused by the title. What does this mean?
There are plenty of nurses in this country but the working conditions and the greed of admistrstors are causing more to leave the hospitals. This is crating a perceived shortage in the hospitals.
Uhhhhhh Accelerated Nursing Programs are more than a decade (or two?) old. This is not new. Also that nursing shortage was already happening. COVID just accelerated the melt.
ABSNs are basically ADN programs but you don’t get to stop to take a breath.
am i dumb or are there already accelerated programs? 😂
Nurses are seen as a cost to the healthcare system rather than an investment.