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Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

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Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#71

Post by mistrial9 »

ghaff wrote: post #5
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

A family friend was talking to a doctor who was considering quitting. The reason why, at least for that doctor, wasn't really the stress from patients. It was all the damned paperwork and the stress that created.

My primary care doctor dropped me a few years back. He said his solo practice couldn't handle the paperwork of having so many patients so he went to just seeing patients for his specialty. He was admittedly older and had never particularly embraced computers and so forth. (And then my new PCP retired during the pandemic.)

almost every single general/primary care Medical Doctor's office in this area of California closed doors after the year 2000 or so.. Paperwork related to insurance billing, and inability to compete with Big Managed Care (Kaiser Health) for work conditions and benefits, is what I heard as reasons.. the offices were empty commercial space, it was noticeable how many there were...

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#72

Post by hateful »

nittanymount wrote: post #29
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

A family friend was talking to a doctor who was considering quitting. The reason why, at least for that doctor, wasn't really the stress from patients. It was all the damned paperwork and the stress that created.

this is more correct, the medical fields have to do a lot of paperwork to follow rules and avoid issues (legal?) almost half of their time are on charting instead of taking care of patients, paperwork is needed, but in most facilities, it takes too much time, and the workflows are not optimized enough as well...

I've always wondered why they don't hire an assistant that JUST does the paperwork/coding for the doctor. They could follow them into room and just take notes (and leave at times when it is appropriate).

How much could it cost to pay someone else to do this? Surely less than a doctor makes doing it... It can become its own profession. It's a separate skill - separate from what a doctor should be focusing on.

On a side note, it seems that a lot of professions would benefit from having an assistant - a thing that seems to have disappeared - if what I've seen in old movies in shows is to be believed. Another side-case of this is the fact that technical people tend to be promoted into management roles and have to deal with attendance and time-sheets - why not have someone else do it? The work only suffers.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#73

Post by krisoft »

Victerius wrote: post #6

U.S. nursing salaries relative to average U.S. wages are above the OECD average: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/health_glance-2017-58-en... So pay isn't the problem. The U.S. is also above the OECD average for the number of nurses per 1000 population: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334515420/figure/fi... So staffing isn't the problem either. The U.S. is below the OECD average for the number of doctors…

> So pay isn't the problem.

Or pay is a problem elsewhere too.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#74

Post by nine_zeros »

From my friends anecdotal experience, burnout in medical industry is partly due to too much administrative work.

It is also partly because the number of patients is increasing disproportionately, mostly because people are getting older. An individual at the age of 50 needed fewer medical appointments than an individual at the age of 70. That's literally from 2002 to today.

There just aren't enough nurses and doctors to tend to such a large old population.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#75

Post by germinalphrase »

uf00lme wrote: post #22

Poor pay, shift work, bad working conditions and multiple chances of catching all kinds of diseases. Most nurses I know have above average intelligence with an excellent work ethic. Just one bootcamp away from a much better life. So much sacrifice for the greater good, we the public are not worth it. Another profession I always think of are math teachers, they are good people.

What non-technical bootcamps provide actual on-ramps into the industry?

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#76

Post by treeman79 »

christophilus wrote: post #18
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

A family friend was talking to a doctor who was considering quitting. The reason why, at least for that doctor, wasn't really the stress from patients. It was all the damned paperwork and the stress that created.

I've known a few nurses, doctors, and PTs who expressed exactly this sentiment. It's such a stupid problem, too. There's no reason they should have such an onerous burden, and yet they all do. One of the PTs I know spent at least as much time filling out paperwork as he did with patients. This was partly due to the volume of paperwork required by govt / insurance / lawyers / whatever, and partly due to absolutely awf…

I got badly injured. Everyone refused to do paperwork. Every doctor said it was every others job. I had great disability coverage. (In theory)

Result. Spent 2 years trying to work when I couldn’t get out of bed and was mostly blind.

All because doctors didn’t want to spend 20 minutes filling out forms. Plus Disability companies lie constantly until various deadlines pass.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#77

Post by PragmaticPulp »

phil21 wrote: post #17

While it's anecdote, every single peer in bedside medical care I know without exception has either left the field, or has immediate plans to as soon as student loan debt is repaid. The few older medical professionals in my family are simply sticking out the last few years until they can retire early. This was generally the case prior to pandemic due to how poor the work environment has become, but the pandemic seems…

> How doctors of all professions lost their professional agency to do-nothing administrators within a generation is quite puzzling and a bit terrifying to me.

I have a lot of friends at various levels of healthcare, from nursing up through low and mid-level administrative positions.

The one thing they all seem to agree on is that patient satisfaction surveys have been terrible for healthcare.

Once the emphasis shifted to patient satisfaction, everything became more of a game of catering to what the patient thinks they want. With the spread of rampant medical misinformation on the internet and the rise of alternative-medicine podcasts/blogs/influencers masquerading as informed medical professionals they have a constant influx of patients who show up believing they have a certain condition or need a certain medication. If you disagree too much or refuse to give them the medication they want, you risk a negative review. Too many negative reviews could negatively impact your compensation or even cost you your job.

Even at offices that don't perform patient satisfaction surveys, providers are at the mercy of negative online reviews. Again, if you don't do exactly what the patient thinks they want, you risk scathing online reviews.

This is terrifyingly problematic given the trend of people to self-diagnose with anxiety or infections who show up demanding Xanax or antibiotics. Puts doctors in a situation where they don't really think prescribing those medications is a good idea, but they also feel like they can't deny too many patients or they risk their reputation/bonus/reviews.

It's also a huge problem with conditions like obesity or alcoholism or smoking, where the doctors can see obvious patient-induced health issues but the patient really doesn't want to hear the truth from their doctor.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#78

Post by Ensorceled »

sonicggg wrote: post #34

Nurses complain about their work conditions, but I don't understand them. They had this massive leverage during the pandemic to discuss improvements. Some people may say "Oh but it is illegal for nurses to strike in country X", but what will governments and companies realistically do if all nurses decide to stop, arrest everyone and let the health system collapse? Not a reasonable option. There's just something masoc…

It's more a lack of psychopathy in the profession. If nurses in Ontario had gone on strike two months ago, a lot of extra people would have died.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#79

Post by reedjosh »

belval wrote: post #52
brightball wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance companies. Everything is controlled by insurance companies. You can’t do anything unless it’s exactly how insurance wants and only for what insurance will pay. It limits everything, including how every profession can be compensated simply because you can’t easily hire somebody for more than what insurance will pay for their services. You can, but the funds have to come from somewhere.

I doubt that it's as simple as that. Nurses are also leaving in Canada and we don't have insurance breathing down their neck.

But they have zero autonomy there too I assume?

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#80

Post by woodruffw »

mfer wrote: post #46

I've spent a fair amount of time talking with nurses about the problems. I'm related to a bunch of people who are nurses across disciplines (ER, ICU, med/surg, etc). It's been enlightening hearing them talk about the problems... 1. Many new nurses make the same or more and long time nurses. It's frustrating when the nurse in charge with the most experience is making less than new nurses. Some hospitals are even tryin…

This is a good summary, and it corresponds to what I've heard from friends and acquaintances that are currently nurses (or left recently).

(2) is a really perverse statistical phenomenon, and it's unfortunate that nurses are bearing the brunt of our civic and public information failures. It must be particularly soul-draining to heal someone who resents the single thing that would have protected them the most from needing hospitalization in the first place.

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