Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

Here’s why this nurse really retired

Ann M. Rogers, RN
Conditions
September 11, 2017
Share
Tweet
Share

This is by no means a scientific study, just some thoughts on what I have seen in my 22 years as a nurse and the loss of bedside nurses who hate it. I think the advent of nurses leaving the bedside will cause a greater crisis for the nursing profession.

I obtained my ADN in 1995 after having worked as a computer operator for 16 or so years in the defense industry. So, I was fairly high-tech as nursing was becoming higher tech.

I had no intention of continuing my education, as I was 46 at the time and wanted to do bedside nursing.

I recently did a minimum of research on the cost of obtaining a degree in nursing. And this varies greatly by which type of nurse one chooses to become.

The average LPN degree is around 12K, an ADN 14K or more, a BSN anywhere from 14K (state school) to 100K depending on which school you chose to go to. Once you have the BSN, there is a master’s degree to think about. And those program costs vary greatly up 200K again specialty counts towards the cost.

So if you want to be a nurse who provides anesthetics or an ARNP in a specialty like family medicine, that means more education and more money.

Is the cost of all this education worth it? Will you be able to find a job that will pay enough to cover the cost of your degrees and your student loans? What will happen to the bedside nurse? Will there be less of them to care for more and more critically ill patients?

In my 22 years as a bedside nurse, I have seen a sizable number of new nurses who tell me they hate working as a bedside nurse, and have either transitioned to another area of nursing or left the field.

In my last few years before my retirement, I have seen brand-new nurses with less than one year of bedside nursing experience who wanted to move in ARNP slots, and they return to school spend all that money and now cannot find a job in that area.

I fear that more and more new nurses without “hands-on” experience will take that route as well. In my opinion, this is not a good thing; they have not seen many things in the field.

Yet working in the medical/surgery/telemetry progressive care unit, an acute rehabilitation hospital, a psychiatric hospital including electroconvulsive therapy, as well as several skilled nursing facility settings that took very ill patients with major wounds, I learned how to get things done correctly and in a timely fashion; how to complete a head to toe assessment in just a few minutes. Was this due to my education? Most likely. Was it due to me keeping up with the latest procedures and sticking my nose in to help other nurses with complicated patients?

Yes, to all the above.

I find it scary to think that nurses — who loathe bedside care and can barely complete an assignment and won’t even enter the room of their patient with me to learn how to start an IV — are planning to advance; do they think they will have less patient interaction?

They don’t seem to understand they will have much more responsibility for the patient in question. (And if they’re covering for an MD, they may be responsible for several hundred patients on any given on-call weekend.) Believe me, I know it is not an easy job. I have seen them sweat over what could be wrong and how to fix it and what medications they should give. The wrong one, and you kill a patient.

ADVERTISEMENT

Will they have the knowledge base to know just by look, sound, and the gut feeling that something major has occurred or is occurring with a patient?

If one cannot obtain a position to fit the newly acquired degree, will they be willing to work a lesser spot like staff nurse, without overstepping the legal boundaries of the position? In most states, one can work the lesser license if performing those tasks set out by the board. Until I obtained a job as an RN, I could and did continue to work as a CNA if I did not do the RN’s work.

Scary thoughts for sure.

Other things that go along with this is the staggering load of acutely ill patients that each staff nurse must care for each shift. Is management staffing to patient acuity or just to the matrix numbers? Are they supportive or just looking at the bottom line each day?

By supportive, I also mean are they giving the same seasoned nurses the hardest assignments every shift, which nurse is getting thrown under the bus newest nurses or the seasoned ones? Are they taking into consideration that not everyone wants to stay on one unit for years and years and might have taken the job to get experience as a stepping stone to a more acute level of care? Are they supportive of staff who have paid their dues moving on to other challenges or do they hold staff back?

Is the shift supervisor you work for supportive and helpful or a hindrance to you and your job performance? Do you hate going into work when you know certain staff members will be there?

Having worked for both type of supervisors, I can say the supportive, helpful ones were always the best to work with the other type make the unit dysfunctional. The old truism of a good manager versus a bad manager holds true for floor staff.

I understand the cost of medical care is high, and reimbursement is getting harder and harder to get, and all medical facilities have a bottom line to adhere to but at the expense of good nurses leaving the field. Not a good thing for sure.

I loved nursing. It scares me that if I become ill, I will have a nurse who doesn’t know anything or how to do basic nursing tasks taking care of me. I have a lot of knowledge stuck in my head, and many times I was the “go-to” person on the unit for things no one else had seen or done. If it was something I did not know, I never was afraid to admit it, then find a resource book or person who knew more than me.

I retired early because all the changes and lack of support just got to me. I needed to keep what little sanity I have left intact.

Ann M. Rogers is a nurse.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

Prev

Being a CEO isn't that different from being a clinician

September 11, 2017 Kevin 11
…
Next

Race to the bottom: The myth of low-quality care in America

September 11, 2017 Kevin 18
…

Tagged as: Hospital-Based Medicine, Nursing

Post navigation

< Previous Post
Being a CEO isn't that different from being a clinician
Next Post >
Race to the bottom: The myth of low-quality care in America

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

  • Here’s how the unjust arrest of one nurse inspires all nurses

    Joan Spitrey, RN
  • My battle against the nurse’s cap

    Debbie Moore-Black, RN
  • It’s the Year of the Nurse

    Sarah E. Jorgensen, RN
  • Registered nurse for president!

    John Green, DHA, RN
  • “You’re making a huge mistake because you’re threatening a nurse.”

    Admin
  • How nurse practitioners can expand abortion access

    Vanessa Shields-Haas, RN

More in Conditions

  • The truth about sun exposure: What dermatologists want you to know

    Shafat Hassan, MD, PhD, MPH
  • How a South Asian nurse challenged stereotypes in health care

    Viksit Bali, RN
  • Could ECMO change where we die and how our organs are donated?

    Deepak Gupta, MD
  • From Civil War tales to iPhones: a family history in contrast

    Richard A. Lawhern, PhD
  • The hidden dangers of over-the-counter weight-loss supplements

    STRIPED, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • How denial of hypertension endangers lives and what doctors can do

    Dr. Aminat O. Akintola
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • How a doctor defied a hurricane to save a life

      Dharam Persaud-Sharma, MD, PhD | Physician
    • Why primary care needs better dermatology training

      Alex Siauw | Conditions
    • Guilty until proven innocent? My experience with a state medical board.

      Jeffrey Hatef, Jr., MD | Physician
    • Why physician strikes are a form of hospice

      Patrick Hudson, MD | Physician
    • Why medical notes have become billing scripts instead of patient stories

      Sriman Swarup, MD, MBA | Tech
    • Federal shakeup of vaccine policy and the battle for public trust [PODCAST]

      American College of Physicians & The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
  • Past 6 Months

    • Why transgender health care needs urgent reform and inclusive practices

      Angela Rodriguez, MD | Conditions
    • COVID-19 was real: a doctor’s frontline account

      Randall S. Fong, MD | Conditions
    • Why primary care doctors are drowning in debt despite saving lives

      John Wei, MD | Physician
    • New student loan caps could shut low-income students out of medicine

      Tom Phan, MD | Physician
    • Confessions of a lipidologist in recovery: the infection we’ve ignored for 40 years

      Larry Kaskel, MD | Conditions
    • mRNA post vaccination syndrome: Is it real?

      Harry Oken, MD | Conditions
  • Recent Posts

    • Federal shakeup of vaccine policy and the battle for public trust [PODCAST]

      American College of Physicians & The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Why clinicians must lead health care tech innovation

      Kimberly Smith, RN | Tech
    • The truth about sun exposure: What dermatologists want you to know

      Shafat Hassan, MD, PhD, MPH | Conditions
    • Learning medicine in the age of AI: Why future doctors need digital fluency

      Kelly D. França | Education
    • How a South Asian nurse challenged stereotypes in health care

      Viksit Bali, RN | Conditions
    • Doctors reclaiming their humanity in a broken system [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 12 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • How a doctor defied a hurricane to save a life

      Dharam Persaud-Sharma, MD, PhD | Physician
    • Why primary care needs better dermatology training

      Alex Siauw | Conditions
    • Guilty until proven innocent? My experience with a state medical board.

      Jeffrey Hatef, Jr., MD | Physician
    • Why physician strikes are a form of hospice

      Patrick Hudson, MD | Physician
    • Why medical notes have become billing scripts instead of patient stories

      Sriman Swarup, MD, MBA | Tech
    • Federal shakeup of vaccine policy and the battle for public trust [PODCAST]

      American College of Physicians & The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
  • Past 6 Months

    • Why transgender health care needs urgent reform and inclusive practices

      Angela Rodriguez, MD | Conditions
    • COVID-19 was real: a doctor’s frontline account

      Randall S. Fong, MD | Conditions
    • Why primary care doctors are drowning in debt despite saving lives

      John Wei, MD | Physician
    • New student loan caps could shut low-income students out of medicine

      Tom Phan, MD | Physician
    • Confessions of a lipidologist in recovery: the infection we’ve ignored for 40 years

      Larry Kaskel, MD | Conditions
    • mRNA post vaccination syndrome: Is it real?

      Harry Oken, MD | Conditions
  • Recent Posts

    • Federal shakeup of vaccine policy and the battle for public trust [PODCAST]

      American College of Physicians & The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Why clinicians must lead health care tech innovation

      Kimberly Smith, RN | Tech
    • The truth about sun exposure: What dermatologists want you to know

      Shafat Hassan, MD, PhD, MPH | Conditions
    • Learning medicine in the age of AI: Why future doctors need digital fluency

      Kelly D. França | Education
    • How a South Asian nurse challenged stereotypes in health care

      Viksit Bali, RN | Conditions
    • Doctors reclaiming their humanity in a broken system [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

Here’s why this nurse really retired
12 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...