Nursing as a mid-career change.
A butcher, a baker, a candle stick maker, and finally into nursing we shall go, or at least for some of us that are board, frustrated, or need a change from our current line of work. The Boston Globe has a brief article regarding mid-career changes that many are looking into. Several articles about switching careers for nursing have peppered that media in recent months outlining people’s concerns with the growing poor economy and general dissatisfaction in their work. The news of the continued nursing shortage and availability of steady stable employment has been somewhat magnetizing.
Several comments about the lack of caring attitudes by today’s healthcare workers, increasing demands, mandatory overtime, patient safety issues and the like coupled with the increasing financial difficulties that most healthcare organizations are experiencing have given healthcare a bit of a black eye. Despite the shaded news in healthcare it is refreshing to see others wanting to jump in. Perhaps healthcare needs a transfusion itself.
What most articles fail to bring up when discussing career changes to nursing is the amazing versatility that one has once they have completed their initial licensing exam. Most of us think of a hospital setting for nurses and healthcare providers, and we tend to forget the many other venues where nursing exists in today’s business world. Even within the confines of a hospital setting nurses can work in many different capacities. Several clinical positions are available from the basic medical-surgical nurse all the way to intensive care and nurse anesthesia. Several administrative positions such as unit managers, educators, and informatics positions exist also.
Outside the traditional hospital setting the sky seems to be the limit with job possibilities. Pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment companies, legal positions, lobbyists, and the list goes on. From a versatility perspective few career choices offer so much lateral movement. A nursing license and a few years of experience will open many doors, or at least the possibility of opening doors.
What does it take? Clearly some time, tuition money, and some hard work will enable those who are attempting to obtain a nursing license the ability to sit for their exam. All seems well, but as with most things in life there are two sides to the story. Typical of many healthcare jobs, nursing is highly demanding both physically and intellectually. The work is twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Healthcare workers are not engaging the public when they are at their best. The stress that nursing endures can be significant. It’s a tough crowd for sure. Shift hours can be long and arduous, and some of the personalities that we meet in healthcare are as pleasant as Charles Manson. Even now after twenty years or so in nursing I come home some days thinking, “If only I had stayed at Domino’s Pizza, I could be an assistant manager by now.” At the end of the day, while some aspects of nursing may not be appealing to all of us, it [nursing] offers a really great array of possibilities to explore and find your niche.
About the Author
Mike Pringle is the author of Healthcare Today where he offers commentary and insight regarding today’s healthcare issues. Additionally he provides regular commentary for Red Scrubs and editorial content for Future Healthcare. He has over 20 years of nursing experience working both domestically and internationally. Mike has a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing and a Masters Degree in Public Administration with a Healthcare emphasis. He specializes in both Emergency and Critical Care Nursing. He currently works at Falmouth Hospital as a Shift Manager for the emergency department.
Dan responds:
Posted: July 1st, 2008 at 3:38 pm →
October 2, 1988
Hospitals Uniting to Attract Nurses
By TESSA MELVIN
LEAD: THE advertisements - offering a ‘’fantastic salary,'’ a ‘’challenging position'’ and the chance to ‘’work hours you want'’ - are constant and sound an increasingly desperate note. But hospital administrators say the nursing shortage in Westchester is getting worse.
THE advertisements - offering a ‘’fantastic salary,'’ a ‘’challenging position'’ and the chance to ‘’work hours you want'’ - are constant and sound an increasingly desperate note. But hospital administrators say the nursing shortage in Westchester is getting worse.
Faced with a 12 percent vacancy rate in nursing positions, a consortium of local hospitals last week announced a joint recruitment and advertising campaign designed to attract Westchester high school students to the nursing profession. Representing one of the few cooperative ventures in an increasingly competitive hospital environment, the Nursing Resource Center, as the project is being called, has been designed to spark youthful enthusiasm for the profession.
The new initiative was announced Wednesday at the General Foods Corporation headquarters in Rye Brook by the chairman of the consortium, Alton W. Noyes. Mr. Noyes, who is president of Phelps Memorial Hospital in North Tarrytown, said the $135,000 cost would be shared by the hospitals and the Westchester Health Fund, a group of contributors representing Westchester corporations. The health fund will provide $75,500. A Direct Effect on Health
‘’Employers are concerned that the shortage of nurses in area hospitals will ultimately impact upon the corporate bottom line,'’ Mr. Noyes said, ‘’because it has a direct effect upon the health of our local citizens.'’
The Nursing Resource Center - not a place, but the name for this campaign - has established a committee of high-school health educators in the county and hospital nursing department heads to develop a pre-nursing course for students. It plans to develop a short video to accompany presentations to local schools boards and parent-teacher associations, a radio commercial for Westchester stations, a videotape for cable television stations and traveling displays for Westchester malls and student job fairs.
An additional $59,500 for the effort has been contributed by the 13 members of the Westchester Hospital Consortium, an organization founded in 1980 as a way for the hospitals to find common solutions to their problems.
The Westchester Health Fund was established in 1969 to provide private support for the County Medical Center and was restructured when supervision of the Medical Center was taken over by the county government. The $2 million endowment, originally provided by Westchester corporations to support the Medical Center, remains the principal basis of the foundation’s contributions to Westchester health needs, according to its executive director, Harry L. Staley. Defining of Issues Is Aim,
The foundation attempts to ‘’define care and quality issues in health care that have a special relation to Westchester employers and employees,'’ said Sy J. Schulman, a member of the board and president of the Westchester County Association, a private group that represents and promotes businesses in the county. The decisions of the board are made by the people on it, Mr. Schulman said, and are not directed by the corporations that employ them.
The other five board members are Dr. Richard D. Finucane, vice president for health services at the General Foods Corporation; Stephen A. Galef, a lawyer with the firm of Galef and Jacobs in White Plains; H. Kenneth Ranftle, director of employee relations at the International Business Machines Corporation; Ivan G. Seidenberg, vice president for external affairs at the Nynex Corporation; and Ross M. Weale, president of the Country Bank in Carmel.
‘’There’s no question that the biggest substantive problem of Westchester hospitals today is recruiting nurses,'’ Mr. Schulman said. ‘’It certainly concerns employers and their employees.'’ Peter H. Wade, president of the Northern Westchester Hospital Center and one of the hospital consortium’s founders, said that contributions from the Westchester Health Fund had allowed the hospital group to ‘’achieve a more-effective health-care delivery system,'’ including the development of a management-training program for hospital administrators. Some Serious Results So Far
Mr. Wade, acknowledging that an increasingly competitive environment has made cooperation among hospitals more difficult, said the problem of recruiting nurses had elicited support for the Nursing Resource Center.
Hospital administrators said the nursing shortage had forced postponement of surgery, lengthy waits in emergency rooms, the closing of entire units and a diverson of ambulances to alternative hospitals. The hospital consortium provided statistics that showed starting salaries for nursing-school graduates were now $28,000 to $29,000 in the county, but the ratio of nurses to patients had declined to 30 nurses per 100 patients, from 58 nurses per 100 patients 12 years ago.
‘’We want to erase the image of the nurse as handmaiden and convert that image to a high-tech, high-touch kind of job,'’ said Arthur E. Weintraub, president of the Northern Metropolitan Hospital Association, which represents hospitals in the seven-county region north of New York City.
Although the new effort will focus on the county’s nursing shortages, its representatives plan to meet with the State Board or Regents to seek support to promote the course around the state, Mr. Weintraub said. A Better Image Is Sought
‘’We are not going to change attitudes overnight,'’ Mr. Weintraub said, ‘’but we have got to put the nursing career in a better light.'’
A related factor, according to Mr. Weintraub, is the effect of the state reimbursment formulas instituted in January, which reimburse hospitals according to the nature of an illness and regardless of the number of days the patient spends in a hospital bed. The Department of Health was expected last week to provide some relief to hospitals, whose costs have risen since the new formulas were instituted.
The high salaries hospitals must pay their nursing staffs to care for these patients have increased the financial burden, Mr. Weintraub said. He added that the 34 hospitals his association represented had projected $32.6 million in operating losses for this year, compared with a $20 million deficit in 1987.
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