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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

#881

Post by ycombobreaker »

cogman10 wrote: post #416
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…

The one I think you are missing is that nurses are and have been overworked for a WHILE now. (that's what I get from /r/nursing) Hospitals have made sure they hire JUST ENOUGH nurses to cover shifts and no more. With covid hitting, this blew out the number of nurses needed resulting in a lot of "I know you've already worked 60 hours, but can you do another 20? we are short!". Rather than hiring permanent people or up…

> Rather than hiring permanent people or upping salary, Hospitals have instead elected to just use travel nurses and an extreme premium so as to avoid any salary increases.

Hearsay from the nurses I know: a large hospital near me has a separate budget line item for full time nurses vs. travel nurses or other "mercenery" roles. This incentive system will never create the best patient care, but I suppose that's not really the goal.

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

#882

Post by zamfi »

heavyset_go wrote: post #740
johnnyanmac wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no shortage of people wanting to be nurses (in some places it is extremely competitive), and there is a huge demand for nurses based on shortages everywhere, but somehow we are in a situation where nurses are overworked because they are short staffed. why is this such a common story across pretty much every single industry? There's more people in the country than 10, 20, 30 years ago. More customers, more…

Owners and operators have learned that they can keep the lights on by running their businesses with skeleton crews and, at the same time, reap the rewards of lower costs as profits.

> reap the rewards of lower costs as profits

yeah...or stay in business because their prices aren't 10x their competitors.

The anti-capitalism is strong on HN these days...

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

#883

Post by rsanek »

Looks like this is just the second time they ran this survey since 2018 [0]; there's no information in that one on how many were considering leaving (maybe 2021 was the first year they asked the question?) It always frustrates me when these stats are given without any context, how do we know if this is even high when we have no relative basis to compare? I think "considering leaving" is particularly difficult because if you were to ask me how many of my co-workers have told me they're considering leaving over the last year, my response would be near 100%. Yet here we are with only a few actually having left.

And why is it so hard to find the raw data from the actual survey? I'm surprised this is scoring so well on HN.

[0] https://www.hospiq.com/about-us/press-releases/new-hospital-...

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

#884

Post by WC3w6pXxgGd »

mumblemumble wrote: post #861
mdavis6890 wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will people pay more for stability and reliability? If so, then that is what businesses will optimize for. Businesses exist to give us what we want. Those that do it well are profitable, those that don’t aren’t. Keep in mind that the effort spent to make healthcare more stable could have instead been used to provide more healthcare overall. Or something else entirely, like shoes or haircuts. All services are not as g…

> Will people pay more for stability and reliability? Given that the USA pays higher-than-average prices for poorer-than-average outcomes, I'd say this is a spurious hypothetical, mostly useful for helping to demarcate the point where economics ceases to be an empirical, scientific pursuit and instead becomes a sort of low-rigor offshoot of moral philosophy. But, back in the realm of epiricism, we know that this is o…

No post body was provided.

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

#885

Post by zamfi »

notch656a wrote: post #593
ayngg wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think that this is just one example of many across a ton of disciplines where people like Nurses basically are forced to deal with costs and responsibilities offloaded onto them from above the responsibility chain. Resources are eaten up at the top of the chain to their benefit and costs are offloaded down the chain until it reaches people like Nurses at the end of the line who have to deal with it because…

I don't disagree nurses DESERVE to be paid more (I'm not sure if the economics bear out but they're certainly as WORTHY as many other professions), but wouldn't the fact that these nurses continue to work in nursing despite considering leaving bolster the argument even further that they are receiving adequate compensation? Staying when you want to leave indicates there's enough compensation to 'make it worth it' at l…

> Staying when you want to leave indicates there's enough compensation to 'make it worth it' at least versus whatever shitty alternatives you have

Not necessarily. The "transaction costs" of switching careers are huge. If you want to make comparable money to nursing, you probably need training in something else, which likely requires a period of low or no income, possibly years of schooling or other training, etc.

It's hard to switch careers after 30 -- not always impossible, but certainly hard to revert back to the lifestyle of a 20-something for some time. People may stick it out despite unhappiness.

Doesn't mean compensation is adequate.

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

#886

Post by WC3w6pXxgGd »

ugh123 wrote: post #743
germinalphrase wrote: post #55

I have a close relation that works for one of the oldest pediatric hospitals in the country. It was recently revealed that they will be shuttering almost all pediatric services in the next year because they can 10x their profits by only serving elderly clients. The entire purpose of this organization was to provide pediatric healthcare, and it wasn’t losing money… Sometimes, it feels like we’re min-maxing ourselves t…

Capitalism and health care just don't mix

No post body was provided.

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

#887

Post by rsanek »

vlunkr wrote: post #387

I'd like to know what "considering leaving" means in this study. I consider leaving my profession every time a React hook misbehaves and locks up my browser, but I'm not actually going to leave. 90% seems way too high to be people who are actively wanting to leave.

Exactly, without any context this number is meaningless. How many were considering leaving a year ago, 3 years ago? We have no idea if this is a trend or even outside the norm -- perhaps nurses simply often run into days that make them reconsider their career choice.

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

#888

Post by bsder »

Shuang1 wrote: post #451
mikemac wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with all of this, and just to add one thing: liability. Look at the RaDonda Vaught case or the Michelle Heughins case; terrifying to be looking at jail time for a med error. Many nurses are watching these cases more closely and deciding that since staffing isn't getting any better and they won't be protected, it's not worth the risk.

That case goes far beyond med error and I don't understand why people keep bringing it up as an example. She pulled the wrong med, and then injected it and walked out of the room rather than observing for effects. Also the med she pulled had warnings on all sides of the bottle and on the top saying very clearly that it's fatal to administer without ventilation. This went beyond a mistake to negligence.

The hospital that hires the nurse should be responsible for the nurse. Period. Under all circumstances.

The hospital has far too many incentives to play fast and loose and then leave the nurses in the lurch with a system stacked against them. The hospital has far too many incentives to skimp on training and safety. etc.

Should this nurse also have her license looked into? Yeah, it looks like it. And is it up to the hospital to fire her or not? Yes.

However, barring actual proof of premeditation, all charges and fines should land on the hospital--not the nurse.

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

#889

Post by adnmcq999 »

armchairhacker wrote: post #711
triska wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is due to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy : https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html "In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agric…

Nurses, teachers, charity workers, IEPs, game devs. These are all jobs where people sign up for the job . Whether it’s altruism or genuine passion. They’re willing to compromise and put up with less pay and harder working conditions. But because they’re willing to compromise, these people are pushed to their limit . With not only low pay and shit conditions, but higher-ups which actively exploit their altruism and pa…

Pretty sure most ppl become nurses for other reasons
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