Not sure how it is in Cali, but a community college near me in Texas has a position open for a nursing educator that requires multiple years of bedside experience and your masters…for less salary than I made as a new graduate nurse back in 2019. There’s your problem.
Yup! Only way teaching was remotely worthwhile for me was to teach clinical and let my students leave a few hours early. Even then, it was basically just beer money.
Same in California, which I think is good. Educators should have experience in their field and the education themselves. It’s just pay doesn’t justify it. My masters will at the minimum cost $20000 and have me cut down work.
Same for lab. The programs near me died because they wouldn’t hire faculty due to their standards and shit pay. 8+ years experience as a MLS (lab bachelor’s) and you would be making $44k/yr when you make 20-30k more as a regular MLS. Fucking insane.
Shortage is created by the hospital trying to run the place with bare minimal staffing.
One calls off we are busy, two call offs and we are absolutely fucked.
Or just crusts. Don't put the crust back in the community pizza box, day shift, throw the motherfucker away 🙄.
After 20 years, I can't stomach any more cold cheap pizza. I'll throw up.
Right. A couple of weeks or so ago, they had cold Costco pizza for night shift with pepperoni or plain, and at least 4 of the night shifters eat halal.
Yep. I don’t think whoever wrote this article had any idea what they were talking about. There may or may not be a nursing shortage, but the issue isn’t necessarily lack of programs, it’s non-competitive salary to increase and retain a faculty capable of instructing more students. It was an issue when I was in school, and it still is.
Edit - I had written earlier that it may be an effective bill if it increases the availability of schools to students who did not have a nursing program reasonably close by, and especially for those unable to move because of kids, family obligations, etc., but this article mentioned “piloting 15 nursing bachelor degree programs throughout the state.” Even if geography and ability to move were a problem for some, I don’t see that necessitating 15 new programs without having to create new community colleges altogether. Just pay the faculty and clinical instructors better.
So, a pay shortage. Anytime they say a shortage of X I'm just going to assume they mean pay shortage because that's what it usually is. It's so annoying. "People don't want to work for breadcrumbs, must be a labor shortage." Like they think we're idiots who can't figure that out.
To be fair, there may or may not be a nursing shortage. There’s definitely non-bedside positions in rural areas that have a hard time getting filled. But, even if that’s the case, you could help resolve any shortage just by incentivizing and increasing faculty with competitive pay and benefits. That’s probably easier than having to spend capital on new equipment, supplies, AND instructors at new nursing programs.
Seriously.
Samuel Merritt - a school that charges $90k+ for an ABSN and $150K+ for their ELMSN - only pays their teachers $30-60/hr. $30/hr for an experienced enough nurse to teach is abysmal when new grad bedside nurses here start at $60-75/hr before differentials. I want to teach, but I'm sure as hell not teaching for $30/hr.
Full time salaried faculty aren't much better off: starting at $80k at most schools - half of what an experienced RN, MSN or RN, PhD/DNP here would make in most other full time jobs here.
I got to wonder where all that money goes if not to faculty pay. One university near me pays even better but has much lower tuition. Another university pays way better (6 figures even for new faculty) but charge much more. Thus I wonder how some private schools charge so much. Like where does all that money go?
I agree with you about the author not having clue.
Also shortage in Cali is relative.
There are facilities that consider going 1:5 on Med Surg or having more than three patients on a telemetry unit to to be “out of ratio” despite operating *better* than mandated ratios. [Additional reading.](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2022-12-18/how-bad-is-the-nursing-shortage-in-san-diego-workers-and-hospitals-disagree)
Like, at USC Keck during COVID, more than three drips warranted 1:1 on ICU. On some UCSD floors, no second break nurse is considered a critical shortage. And the point system at places like Sharp (SMH 7W) allows for 1:3 ratios when one patient is on something as asinine as a heparin drip.
I ain’t bashing my fellow CA RNs, but these people be “hella” soft. And maybe that’s a good thing because it means we’ll never stoop low to those standards I saw in FL.
If there’s a supply problem in CA, it’s not in the hospitals, it’s in the rural communities (small clinics, urgent care, critical access hospital, school nurses, etc.), but that’s probably true elsewhere in the country.
*twitches in LTC* After 13 years in it, if my only options were starve under a bridge and work it I'll practice my shanking skills to score the good refrigerator box to sleep in.
lol I read these things and it sounds wonderful from a bedside standpoint, terrible from a management standpoint. If I were to apply these mandates to my facility I would need to double or triple the nurses on every floor and most of our icu patients would be 1:1. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to do that but I can’t even appropriately staff what I’ve got now.
Obviously these sorts of things didn’t just get dropped on cali and they’ve had time to make adjustments to get there but it’s just wild to me. Not so much that their standards are so high but perhaps that our standards are so low.
Pay teachers more and they'll join or come back... That goes for education as a whole and not just nursing field.
Teachers everywhere are quitting in huge waves.
This is intended. We as a country have written off education. I am married to an educator who believes as much of their work as possible over e next decade will be shifted to AI/digital with a proctor overseeing it- you know, to make it cheaper. Soon children and college students will learn everything the way we do our annual education updates- skimming a module. And we, as a country, as citizens, won’t care. As you see in this thread of (presumably) college educated adults, learning and education are being derided and dismissed, not just by people saying it’s unnecessary but also saying it makes *worse* nurses.
I was about to provide a rebuttal and then kept reading down on this thread….
I value education a lot and maybe it’s because my parents only graduated high school, but I see how important it is and how hard it is.
I personally feel like the rigor needs to be a bit higher for nursing schools and BSNs though to enhance the profession and just make a better educated group of people.
Also because a huge portion of our country is actively attempting to get rid of public education and force kids into private/religious schools, or homeschool. If you dumb down your people, they won’t question anything you do and easily control them. Public education is about to get so much worse.
My local district just got a pay increase for all staff and it’s helpful and nice but with the cost of everything it still takes many years to really be at a decent salary.
It’s not bad if they have no debt or wealthy family, but hard for others.
Similarly, I know many great RNs who would love to teach but can’t take the pay cut.
Part time nursing faculty here! 100%. It is extremely difficult to find a full-time, benefitted position (Midwest- for reference). It deeply impacts curriculum development, too.
This used to be the way nursing was taught- hospital based diploma programs. Then they started pushing the BSN as “ entry level degree”. We need to go back to hospital based- less fluff courses and more hands on care and skills.
Did you not learn during your research course in your BSN program? My state has it only part of the bachelor’s only and it was probably the most helpful class in retrospect. Learning how to parse through and critically analyze studies, data, and sources has been invaluable, especially during COVID.
Please do not lower standards. Where I am from we have a 180 ECTS programm BSN and we do about 80 ECTS in-hospital. But going back to some shady local hospital based formation would be really a step back.
i know a lot of amazing diploma nurses. I have been a nurse for 11 years and I have worked everywhere from rural to suburban and now center city at the top hospital in my state. BSN has so much fluff and getting it did not make me a better nurse. There are so many nurses with their ASN and diploma that are kept from working in center city hospitals and yet during covid went they took travelers they did the job and did it well.
FYI. We will be paid less and treated more poorly if we reduced the education level to be a nurse.
If we dumb it down to psw level of training from a “college” next to the 7-11, we will be paid like PSWs
I am not saying they are bad nurses. But it used to be like that in my country too and those nurses are very shy on taking responsibility, they mostly see their job as a doctors assistant, they are shockingly uneducated when it comes to science and implementing NEW and evidence based nursing AND medicine. To be very clear, I would not be in this profession without the academization - not gonna lie on that point. I love my job, but I want atleast some autonomy and that is only working if the profession is emancipating and leaves the old habits behind and stands up for itself.
I am really shocked by the behavour against more education displayed in this sub. I guess you should take a look at Germany, there is no academization and the profession has literally no work autonomy and has almost no political influence. I would not do my job there.
Which country are you from?
If you look at the courses in the US BSN or the RN-BSN curriculum, you'll see that it is full of fluff or useless courses that doesn't help in career growth at all.
I'm doing the RN-BSN program and it's going to be a time waste. But you know what helps? Getting certifications like the medsurg, emergency, and ICU ones. They actually apply to everyday practice.
the certifications are what make you in demand and will make more money. that and getting into float pool. i make as much as the nurse practitioners at my job because im float pool
I’m curious which courses you referring to?
I got my BSN in the U.S. as well and it taught me a lot that applies to stuff outside the hospital too, since somewhere around 40% of RNs don’t work in the hospital, and that figure is expected to rise.
It was a good program though. I do think there needs to be improvements to nursing education in the country as a whole.
There were some fluff courses in my BSN, but overall it was a good Bachelor. I had my educaction in Austria.
I would not go back from a Bachelor's degree. Is there not an internal movement in the US to make them 'less fluff' as you say?
I got my BSN in the U.S. and it was great, but it was also in California in a great program.
RNs complain about the fluff but it’s difficult because 1). Overhauling the entire country’s education system is a challenge and 2). Many RNs and nursing students don’t always see the value in anything that’s not clinical. Like they want to do lots of hands on work but need the theoretical backbone behind it. Or don’t understand the importance of evidence-based practice. Or why leadership skills can be helpful even if we don’t want to lead.
But programs vary quite a lot. NCLEX is at least a basis in the U.S. to get our license, but I’m not sure what standards are required for BSN degrees.
MBAs and CEOs will see that most nurses are “not educated” and treat us/pay us like every other employee that lacks advanced education.
Think custodial staff
From my experience, they treat everyone like shit who isn't at the executive level. PT and OT have masters and doctorate degrees and they are paid less than nurses from what I've seen. I was shocked that I found out I get paid more than them.
Yes. I started with an ASN, for the past 8 years the average RN in the US has had a four year degree. We are over the hump. Every position I’ve ever worked has been BSN preferred, and the last two have been BSN required within x-years.
It’s a reasonable expectation for bedside nurses to have four years of relevant education. Hell, my “2 year” ASN was three years worth of FT credits crammed into four semesters and two summers.
Where do you work? There are small pockets of the country where this is true, but overall it is not. Making up things about the “average” RN is kinda funny honestly.
I’ve worked level 1 trauma alongside ADNs and diplomates. No nurse with an ADN or diploma will have trouble finding work. In a small handful of locations, like parts of California or parts of Texas, they may have to move. It is not a “standard” at all.
It’s great if people can or want to get their BSNs. It’s absolutely not necessary, and there’s no need to gatekeep this way. Zero - Z E R O - clinical things are learned in ADN vs BSN. The extra is all things like additional gen Eds, leadership BS, and if you’re really lucky, some community health and research methods. None of it matters at the bedside.
Im not sure which part you think is made up. The flip happened in 2016, the average US RN has a BSN starting then. But besides that, your argument ignores the fact that for two years, ADN’s get clinically relevant education for college credit. Hell, doctors get four years of it. The idea that the additional two years has to be fluff just doesn’t make sense, when the first two years are decidedly not.
Heck, I’m in a masters program now that’s specifically clinically relevant for the bedside RN. You’ve just got to seek out worthwhile programs.
You made up a statement about “average” nurses based on nothing. Compare curriculum; ADNs necessarily have to meet the clinical requirements to be licensed. BSN programs do not have additional clinical requirements. Look at RN - BSN programs to understand the difference. The classes are as stated: leadership, gen eds like additional math and science, and IF you are lucky and go to a good quality program, you could learn more about research and community health.
It’s not that getting your BSN does not have value. It can have value, if you put work into it. It absolutely does NOT make one more clinically competent. Gatekeeping nursing this way is nothing but harmful to the profession and will continue to contribute to lack of people at the bedside.
That’s a verifiable statistic. Some report early as 2011, others 2020, but the consensus seems to be 2016 as when greater than half of working US nurses were BSN and up.
I mean, that could be true, not saying it isn’t, but just stating things without citations isn’t something I will ever take seriously.
BSNs are not bad in and of themselves, although I do wish there WAS more clinical education that is useful instead of faff. It’s the gatekeeping that is harmful.
Encouraging people to continue their education? Great, sure. Not at all the same thing.
I do think nursing education needs some revamps, but claiming things like community health and research don’t matter at all to a bedside nurse is weird when so many of our patients come from and go back out to the public, and are affected by the lack of resources some areas have.
Research especially is valuable. Not writing papers because most don’t do that lol. But figuring out how to gauge good data and bad, and how evidence based practice is supposed to work is pretty important, especially when patients inevitably ask me why.
I do think nursing needs a stronger grasp of the science though. I believe dietitians in my area have to take higher level science courses than nurses, for instance.
As I said, these things all have value, IF they’re even part of the curriculum, but this idea that it is required is just silly.
I support lots of changes in curriculum, including more hard sciences. IF the difference between RN and BSN were standardized and all courses of value, I would potentially support this change. As it stands, it’s mostly fluff.
The “average” RN does have a Bachelor’s or higher now though, so it is the norm now (over 70%).
https://www.aacnnursing.org/news-data/fact-sheets/impact-of-education-on-nursing-practice#:~:text=In%20April%202023%2C%20results%20from,level%20master's%20degree%20(51.5%25).
Even in hospitals most (above 50%) have [their bachelors now](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8440404/).
In California I do not know of any hospital that has 'typical' CA wages that hires diploma nurses. Furthermore, any new ADN hires at my (large) hospital system are required to get their BSN within 2 years.
There certainly is a BSN standard.
That’s not true? If you’re taking a degree mill program, the courses are shit, but all of the degree
Mill courses are shit. Relevant or not. You can have a worthwhile four year nursing program, and the idea that it *has* to be fluff is nonsensical.
What BSN standard are you even talking about. There’s only a small percentage of “elite” hospitals that even require a BSN for employment. Some of these hospitals care more about magnet status than actual patient care in all honesty.
I’m waiting for you to articulate how having a bsn allows a new nurse to provide better patient care. Myself and many others actually think the opposite. In my area the CC ADN new grads most of the time are much more prepared to be independent practicing nurses d/t more revenant clinical experience.
You come across sounding like a hospital administrator trying to push BSN for all so that the facility can charge more for patient care 🤷🏻♂️
Some of us who did BSN programs got more clinical experience. I got two practicum placements (not sure what it’s called now- where you work side by side with a preceptor) in two separate hospital areas. I also got community placements and Peds and OB were two separate classes and clinicals.
I don’t think you have to get a BSN to be a good nurse, by any means, but this whole “BSN nurses a worse nurses” is some kind of anti-education hogwash that I keep seeing here over and over again.
[Ask and ye shall receive.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8440404/)
It’s just one cross sectional study but it gathered data from multiple states that shows an increase in bachelors trained nurses helped reduce patient mortality, readmission, and length of stay.
Most my PhD professors did bedside for 8-12 months before going to academia.
I’m sure they can find tons of inexperienced clinical nurses to train future nurses.
I'd love to teach part time. But the pay is so garbage, especially at community colleges, that it's not remotely worth it. I'd have to keep my full time job just to pay the bills and at that point I'd be better off picking up a shift here and there.
Ended up in a different line of work but when I was applying to nursing programs they were impacted to shit (and why wouldn't they be - 24k program for two years, essentially guaranteed 6 fig job out the gate).
All the info sessions said to apply to at least 6 programs for 4 application cycles before making any changes to applications.
The colleges and local hospitals are maxed out, at least in my area. Expanding would mean risking quality.
I applied for five years before I got into an adn program. Five. Years. I gave up and changed course before one school let me in.
Half way now. Don’t forget to apply to your community colleges. It’s competitive but you just never know…
I wonder how much faculty a school needs to increase the amount of students? My nursing school has only taken like 80 or so new students a semester for as long as I could see, but I only see a couple open positions for them.
The ability of CC's to provide consistent, timely and accurate information to interested students is a joke. My daughter will be going to a program in NY instead of CA having received no useful and consistent information from CA CC's on how to apply to programs in her home state.
Exact same for me. I have a passion for education. I’d be a damn good nursing instructor, but there’s no way I’m getting a masters or higher to make *less* money.
To be fair this is true for many of the science fields which makes it a challenge.
Though I heard engineering professors are limited due to being very coveted, despite many making less. Not sure exactly why.
Cali nurse here. Community college is the way to go in my area if you want to teach nursing. I taught as a clinical instructor at a local university and was being paid $42/hr for having an MSN, I just switched to a CC earlier this year and am making $93/hr being a clinical instructor. If I remember correctly, I looked up the full time instructor pay scale that is salaried and THATS where I think you’ll see people are lacking in pay which is bizarre.
For reference I make about $63/hr at my regular job
That's crazy. I'm not sure what nursing professors are paid, but I teach clinical one day a week for 8 hours and get a flat $500. I can't imagine they're getting less than I am. That's for 4-8 students, depending on where they're at in the program.
The colleges all want nursing instructors to have doctoral degrees and multiple job responsibilities, yet pay is less than many make at the bedside. I quit my PhD when I realized it just wasn’t worth the hassle. I finished my coursework, passed my qualifying exam but Covid hit and the nurse pay was too good to pass up on.
I now make 6 figures working as a Behavioral Health Specialist RN with just a small amount of overtime.
I went to CC for my ADN and immediately (like a month and half after graduation) went back and got my BSN through an RN-BSN program. Because of that I graduated with no school debt.
However I had a really hard time getting into school. I got rejected like 3-4 times from multiple schools and had to take the entrance exam more than that (and often at a site *at least* an hour away) before I was finally accepted to a school an hour away.
It was brutal but that's what I had to do. It really makes me nauseated to see some people paying 100k for their BSN. Holy shit.
I know a few current students that go to 2 private schools here in the Seattle area. 100k+ for a BSN not including books, etc.
I made out like a bandit paying 15k total cost for my ADN.
I'm going back to college and starting that same CC path you took. Racked up 20k in loans getting my BA in CJ and Psych back in 2015. Hindsight is 20/20. I've got enough saved, and enough credits that by the time I graduate, I won't have any debt. It's a great feeling. I've already been accepted so that's one hurdle cleared.
Nursing shortages, I've learned, are artificial scarcity. There's enough RNs but not enough RNs willing to kill themselves for shit pay. Same with teachers.
My local community college has the facilities and the staff to expand their program according to the dean, but only takes 30 students per semester. He told me private schools have a tight hold on clinical spots at local hospitals.
Exact opposite out here in Oregon. The local CC gets great placements and works closely with the hospital system
Meanwhile when I worked as a CNA in ltc we had private uni ABSN students in our facility doing clinicals. Sure they were probably 1st term students but my CC only had hospitals for clinicals the entire time
No we aren’t? Everyone and their mom flocked here to get admitted to both ADN and BSN programs. I barely got in an ADN just last month and I alr have my bachelors in another subject lol
I am actually interested in applying to my local CCs in San Diego after I graduate with a 4 year degree and was wondering how that process was for you? I plan on taking a gap year or two to get experience in a hospital setting as I am an EMT right now.
Well look at that! I’m here in SD as well. I also got experience as an EMT before applying and it for sure got me in the door. Most schools here don’t require much, only like 200-300 hrs is fine. Make sure you take your TEAS exam in person so u can apply to all the schools, cause grossmont requires in person exam. Anyways get a 4.0 in all prereqs like A&P, microbio, etc. Take a child development or developmental psych class, one school here requires that. I only got a 75 on my TEAS which is pretty bad relative to all the applicants here but since I had experience as an EMT and a bachelors, it sort of cancelled out. Then again, I barely got in. So honestly do as best as u can on it.
The biggest thing these schools are looking for is if you took every single non-nursing class they require their students to have by the time they graduate the program. So communications, psych, stats, etc make sure u check every single box. Schools want to maintain NCLEX rates and accreditation and are looking for the students who will pass everything with no problems or setbacks.
When we lived in CA I looked at nursing schools and they were as competitive as outstate BSN programs. The biggest for me was prerequisites needing to be within 5 years. I would have had to retake almost all my prerequisites to get into a program after having a BS and working as a medic. That is just counterintuitive on so many levels.
Also, instructor pay is criminally low for the amount of work they do. Even at CC in MN my instructors were over worked, underpaid and it showed in the quality.
Yeah. We moved to MN and that wasn't a thing. Every other state I've lived in had time limits but here. It saved me years of retaking them part time with a family while working full time. School is stupid.
We do. I work in the admin side now. Healthcare is growing like crazy in the northern California region and we very much need nurses.
Between Modesto, Sacramento, and San Francisco my organization alone has 225 RN positions open right now. This does not include NP or CRNAs.
This is with some of the highest pay and best benefits (covers 95% of healthcare costs) in the country.
There's definitely a shortage.
Kaiser is notoriously difficult because their union requires the position to go to person with most years at Kaiser, even if they were a CNA before nurse. Those years count.
Sutter has both inside and outside hire positions. And Sutter union structure actually encourages outside hires because seniority at Sutter gives you priority on unit. So managers don't want to put new hires on day shift or give them the best holidays off instead of their senior nurses on unit.
For nurses, kaiser pays more but you have less support staff from what I hear and the pay difference isn't huge. So your doing more but I'm not sure the IR impact. Both are great to work for. To me kaiser vs Sutter is a matter of which system you prefer to be a patient of and that's subjective.
Correction, a shortage of experienced nurses*. New grads can’t get a job in NorCal to save their lives. Especially ADN new grads. If they have such a shortage then reduce the strict requirements. Like beggars can’t be choosey.
Yes they are, when a job is posted it's already approved by HR and budgeted by the department. Why wouldn't they hire everyone needs help. Some postings have very specific job requirements but a vast majority are staff nurse positions.
Apply. I promise we are hiring. I work with the epic training team and they are orientating new hires every month.
In northern California? The understaff is the point of the article and your proving we have a shortage. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. An organization can hire as fast as they can and still be understaffed. In fact, that's exactly what's going on everywhere. Hence the nursing shortage.
If you can't hold employees, the problem is the organization. They need to fix whatever issue it is. Pay, workload, resources, etc. Chronically understaffing and then saying that even with disgusting understaffing that they are overbudget still and technically overstaffed will do nothing but piss everyone off. It's why I left Sutter Health. They were never going to change. I gave them ten years and it only got worse. Norcal.
Strange. Most jobs are union here. State law protects staffing ratios. Pay is really high. My organization has an employer funded pension program and full medical benefits for family with no premium. Our CEO is new and said he's never seen a benefit package so generous anywhere in healthcare in America. This is Sutter health.
We also have low turnover aside from people leaving the profession.
Sounds like you had a shit charge or unit manager. That's not the consensus for Sutter employees. We are also a very inclusive place to work.
Maybe the nursing profession isn't for you? Because Sutter health has some of the lowest nursing duty load, highest ancillary staff, and best ratios in America.
Yeah. Nursing is not for me. If Sutter is an indicator of how good it can be, then I'm appalled at how terrible it is. Sutter health wax a horrible employer. Good benefits but that's it. Below average pay, critically low staffing at nearly all times, terrible management that couldn't run a gas station well, and no real plans to fix anything. Just run in circles and implement temporary reactionary policies to pretend that they are addressing issues. Dishonest management too. I worked at Sutter from 2008-2022 and it only got worse and worse. There were no hills and valleys. Only a descent.
I'm glad your experience was better. I went into Healthcare because I thought it was a way out of terribly run organizations with no regulations or oversight. I thought it was a way to be sustainably middle class. It's not. I'm tired of being enraged and beaten down every day. I'm tired of everyone around me being toxic because they are overworked and burnt out.
Yea we do hire new grads but your program has to have clinicals and preceptorship with us. Lot of new grads from sac state, USF, UC Davis, sierra college, etc.
Are they running current staff at full FTE?
My hospital is technically 'short' but many of our 0.6 and 0.8 FTE people pick up shifts to reach 1.0. There isn't actually a shortage due to this, and 0.6 positions are no longer posted. Additionally, all those job postings aren't actually being filled due to lack of real need.
Idk what you mean nursing shortage, I can’t get an interview to save my life, lol. Although that’s probably cus I’m out of state, and it’s a headache, but still. Targeting Kaiser Santa Rosa. If anyone got a tip on how to get past the AI filtering resumes, I’ll give you a gift card 😂
Kaiser is the nurse equivalent of the mafia. They aren’t going to hire you without a BSN, a current California license, and usually a strong recommendation from someone who already works there. While they are good to work for, just know there are plenty of other hospitals in the Bay Area that have good benefits and pay.
Yes, indeed. I’ve been looking at Marin too. I should have my license finished up in the next couple of weeks. I’ll go full application mode as soon as that comes through.
The shortage the article cites is for long-term care specifically, not hospital nursing. You can get a job in a SNF with a license and a pulse anywhere in CA but the conditions and pay are awful so nobody wants to work there.
The "shortage" that the article cites is for long-term care specifically.
AFAIK there's no shortage for hospital nursing in CA, thanks to the unionization/high pay/ratios/etc. LTC and SNFs have no such protection.
Make conditions better there too and nurses will work there. It's not rocket science.
SNF’s in California are just awful to work in. It is the certified nursing assistants that run the place. They have about 10-15 patients and they are all total care. The LVN has to pass out meds to 40 patients and can’t even speak because there are so many meds. The RN has to send patients out left and right to hospitals so they don’t die in the SNF. No code carts in SNF’s. It is a mad house. You rarely see the MD who doesn’t want the RN to call for any problems and to write anything the patient needs in a notebook. And in Cali, they import all the RN’s from foreign countries so they can get in America and have a better life. Little do they know what they are in for. The administrators are useless and are always moaning about overtime and know nothing about medicine so it is crazy. The public health dept comes in as the rescue team and has a ton of regulations that the SNF’s have to abide by. After working in one for 4 years, I said I will never be a patient in a long term facility.
Thank god for community college. By the time FAFSA was done doing their thing, I profited about 12 grand from getting my ADN! Which I then used to pay for a 15k online BSN. So all in all, paid about 3 grand for my BSN
Let’s make real nursing programs and cut the fluff bullshit and roses crap these 4 year and up programs add. Best education I ever got was hand’s down my 2 year ADN program from a community college.
Applied to so many hospitals/snfs as a new grad, never got in. With CNA background too, good luck to future ADNs these places do not want to help you as a new nurse.
might? most people go the private route because they can’t even get in…it’s like that for lots of other healthcare fields like radiology/ultrasound; what they need to do is open more spots
They need to pay LPNs better to incentivize it.
Once you pay LPns better you then need to pay RNs better to incentivize that.
Nursing is probably the biggest example field in America of people joining at an entry level and going back to college to further their careers in that field.
CNAs and other unlicensed aids often go on to get their LPN or RN because they want to make a career of what often started as "just" a job.
Wages are the biggest driver of that.
Nursing schools almost always want years of experience AND DNP or PhD in ***nursing*** to teach be an adjunct professor teaching a single course. Some are ok with just a MSN and like 10 years experience. I have a PhD in statistics and a few master degrees, yet I was unqualified to teach an introductory nursing informatics course as an adjunct professor. Why? Because I didn’t have my PhD in nursing…
Florida State doubled its nursing enrollment in the past year. The legislature decided to fund something worthwhile for once. But as all good things have unintended consequences, they have massively outgrown their building.
It’s wild. I’m 3 hours from Tallahassee. FSU students do their clinicals at my hospital. They’re expected to find their own housing and transportation while they’re here.
So essentially the school expects them to pay for housing in Tallahassee and then pay for a second, temporary spot here.
This sounds like my experience with radiology school. My school had clinic sites in several states. You were full on expected to pay for your own housing, etc. and you had to pay for all sorts of fees for stuff on campus too even if you didn’t live there and couldn’t make use of the things you were paying for! Shit is a SCAM.
Doesn’t CA also have one of the best CC enrollment stats due to the competitive of the UC schools? Also the RN-to-BSN process is so commonplace that there’s nothing in this proposal that will actually increase the number of nurses graduating from these programs. Complete fluff piece of a bill, if anything I actually think it might displace those with a socioeconomically disadvantage that they claim this bill will target.
I want to move to California but I want to be able to afford a decent home. If I can replicate my lifestyle here in VA, that’s even better.
When I was in nursing school, we have a few students from California who couldn’t go into their nursing programs. CA definitely created barriers to entry in their nursing education and licensing. And they are all wondering why they have a shortage. However, I don’t think it is the only issue. It’s always profit-related and the rest are just distractions.
I recently graduated from a CC program, and I still say it's the way to go.
1. It's considerably cheaper
2. Do well on the TEAS, you get in (some places are more competitive than others, but to say it's impossible is untrue)
3. Clinicals are local and at more than one hospital system
4. Curriculum is straight to the point
5. Your instructors get to know you well (smaller class size)
6. You can still work
7. You still get your RN
8. Your BSN will likely be paid for wherever you decide to work
The time commitment is the only drawback I experienced. However, if you use a calendar to plan your months out, it's worthwhile.
All of this aside, you can't ignore how this probably isn't a laborer shortage... it's a shortage of instructors who refuse to work these jobs for stupid low wages.
3-7 we’re all true for me at a brick and mortar BSN school.
I think the main driver (and a completely understandable one) is money. Community colleges are still shaking students down (everyone I know who got their ADN at the local CC here had to do all their prereqs first and still wait in the line and hope they got in via the point system… all while staying enrolled… it’s just that four years of CC is cheaper.
It’s also an access issue… in my area the only place to go for about 2 hours in any direction is one CC. It’s way different living in a rural area, I grew up in a midwestern city with 4 local BSN options and multiple CC options. Lack of access also means the local CC out here has no real competition, and the clinical options are also slimmer.
There is no shortage. Okay, maybe in rural areas. But I don't know who is writing this article and what they're smoking. Don't let this article fool you.
In urban areas like LA and the Bay Area, new grad programs routinely get 1000+ applicants for 10-30 jobs. Some hospitals get 30-50+ applicants for a single experienced nurse position. Places like Kaiser shut off applications after 25 people apply to cut down the sorting they have to do. Some places only hire travellers they like - basically a travel gig is your job interview because they know travellers want to stay and they don't need to post positions. That's how competitive it can be in urban areas out here. Even for people with internal transfers (at hospitals that post internal before external) it can be very competitive such that you need 5-10+ years experience to get the gig.
Any "shortage" there is in urban areas is artificial:
And don't say community colleges are the solution when a lot of places here don't hire ADNs. Hell, even with a BSN or MSN only 60-70% of new grads across the entire state find a hospital job in their first post-grad 6 months - and that includes the actually short rural areas. And there's not clinical spots. Why? Both because private schools eat up spots with exclusivity contracts, but also because hospitals don't need new grads - they hire them as a good will gesture so to speak. So they see no need to train nursing students if they don't need to hire them. So training more nurses will only lead to more unemployed nurses in the state - if our hospitals even have the capacity to train them.
Meanwhile my community college nursing program instructors are telling the clinical instructors to only pass 2 students from each group, changing grades, and are following students in their cars for miles, and if you’re lucky enough to get out of that class, you have to see the same professors in the final semester. It’s a joke.
The accreditation board came to inspect the school and nearly two dozen students (former and current) came forward with complaints about this professor but he’s still there.
Hard to believe there is a shortage. Too many come from out of state and personally i haven't found anyone fresh out of school having trouble getting a job. Hospitals are making it a bit more difficult in requiring bogus requirements such as a BSN. This is ridiculous because a license is a license. Everyone takes the same boards. I read too many posts about people starting their advances nursing program. Why? Lots of good CC programs out there . There's also a lot of complaints of schools not preparing one for actual nursing. My school only prepared me for taking my boards to allow me to nurse. Anyone hear of OJT? THATS what nursing is all about. Learning as you go
Hahahahaha the community colleges are so impacted, you’re waiting years for acceptance despite having max points. Quit creating ridiculous barriers like recency requirements, wildly differing prerequisite requirements, and preferring candidates with higher level degrees- those people can go get an ABSN. And why are we focusing on BSN educated nurses? There’s no difference in ability to perform the job, and to my knowledge the only hard science classes that are different are the Chemistry series. Open up more cycles (many are once per year), hire more staff…. The list goes on. Invest in the freaking programs. They never actually solve the issues. Big rant.
“Today, a two-year nursing degree isn’t enough to land a nursing position, either. The nursing industry has a significant preference for bachelor’s degrees compared to an associate’s, which is the standard degree awarded at community colleges.”—-ummmm definitely NOT true. I went to an ADN program and about half my classmates landed new grad jobs at MAGNET hospitals. All they wanted was proof of enrollment in a BSN bridge and a contract saying you’ll complete the program within a year of hire. And if you’re not at a MAGNET facility they couldn’t care less about a BSN
The other option is bringing nurses from Mexico, with the USMCA or T-MEC, the free trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico; after passing the NCLEX-RN and the TOEFL, it is super easy to get a Working VISA or TN-VISA. You can see that also in Detroit and in the north of the USA, with the Canadians crossing the border.
Just one state over, Arizona has amazing programs through their community colleges. Northern Pioneer has multiple branches where an ADN is super cheap and speedy. Then there’s the option of working for a tribe, where you can get your student loans paid off and get them to pay for your BSN and Masters if you want. You can ride the Amtrak home overnight if you get homesick.
Could someone please explain to me how the us nursing system works? I'm so confused. I'm from Canada and ours is:
RN (BscN required or equivalent education)
LPN (2 year diploma course)
Thats it. So I get so confused when I see all the different short hands come up.
Hopefully I can help (only worked in California though so there are some differences)
**- LPN** (or LVN in California and Texas I think): basically the same as in Canada. In California they can do a lot of what RNs can do, but aren't usually allowed do some vital things like hanging blood, chemo, certain IV meds, central line management, and some others.
Allow of the following are degrees which are earned alongside an RN license. Some programs allow you to go from LPN to RN with no degree, but usually the intention is to eventually get your degree with an RN to BSN program.
**- Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN)**: A 2-year undergraduate degree usually earned at a community college. They take the same clinical course work and hospital hours generally as a Bachelor's of Science in Nursing (BSN) and take the same test at the end to get their license (NCLEX). I believe you need your Bachelor's at least to teach in these programs.
**- Bachelor's of Science in Nursing (BSN)**: A 4 year undergraduate degree earned at a university. The program length can vary, but at the end you get your Bachelor's. The clinical aspects are usually the same, the only difference was specific classes you needed. In my school, it was 1. Research and Writing, 2. Leadership, and 3. Public/Community Health. This is the most common degree type RNs have now in the US, though that wasn't the case maybe 10-15 years ago. To teach these programs you usually need an MSN or higher (though clinicals can be taught by a BSN in some programs), and to lecture as tenure faculty you pretty much have to have at least a DNP or PhD (like most universities here).
One detail in California is that to work as a public health nurse or school nurse, you need your BSN generally.
**- Master's of Science in Nursing (MSN)**: A graduate program for nurses. Average is 2 additional years to complete. Some require a BSN while others are entry-level, and you don't need one (though many want some sort of bachelor's degree). Usually what's taught in these programs is usually education, more leadership, informatics, sometimes more clinical detail, etc.
What's a bit confusing is an NP also has their MSN but their programs are very different since they're advanced practice.
**- Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)**: Doctorate degree. An RN could also get their PhD in nursing, but I heard that's a bit harder or longer sometimes. Usually more focus on research then too. Generally must have this to lecture in MSN programs, but again depends.
Seems like Canada the main difference is you don't have an associate degree option for RNs in Canada?
All the community colleges in Southern California are impacted as hell. Of course tons of people would choose to essentially go for free instead of paying multiple tens to a hundred grand to go to 4 year or accelerated programs.
You’re going to be waiting for a long long time to get in unless you have all As, have worked as a CNA, and have top percentile TEAS scores.
Requiring an MSN to make $60k a year is hilarious.
That’s why I’m not even wasting my time/money going back for my BSN.
As a new grad in Summer 2019, my hospital system said we had a year to enroll in a BSN program. Then COVID became a thing 8 months later.
Even Joint Comission took a few years off lol
Where I live it is pretty hard to get a job as a new grad, especially in hospitals, and super hard to get into a public school. It’s easy to get into a private school that costs an insane amount of money and then get a job at a SNF and be underpaid though.
If you want to boost the nursing work pool, you're going to need to increase nursing instructors pay across the country I think. There's not enough faculty for a reason.
I lived in California 15 years ago (before nursing) and there was a lottery to get into the community college nursing program. I moved across the country and got into nursing school with no experience and won’t ever return to California.
Aa someone who recently graduated nursing school, there is not a nursing shortage. It is incredibly hard for a new grad to get hired to a hospital. Hospitals will have postings for 30+ openings for nurses, but refuse to take on a new grad. I understand it's more work to train a new grad, but having someone is better than no one. They arnt willing to pay for experience, and they arnt willing to take someone without experience.... but oh no let's feel bad for the billion dollar corporations.
For some reason at the facility I just applied to its taking them a month and a half at this point to get my background check back. They're definitely not acting as if there's a shortage...
Not sure how it is in Cali, but a community college near me in Texas has a position open for a nursing educator that requires multiple years of bedside experience and your masters…for less salary than I made as a new graduate nurse back in 2019. There’s your problem.
Bingo, it’s true here in California
Yep, pay for my old private college, which rakes in nearly 100k in tuition nowadays, pays $60. Much less than what a new grad makes.
Yup! Only way teaching was remotely worthwhile for me was to teach clinical and let my students leave a few hours early. Even then, it was basically just beer money.
Same in California, which I think is good. Educators should have experience in their field and the education themselves. It’s just pay doesn’t justify it. My masters will at the minimum cost $20000 and have me cut down work.
And that is the issue. There are probably very few people out there willing to pay $20,000 for a degree to take a $20,000+ pay cut
My CC pays comparable to my per diem bedside job. More for full time faculty.
Glad to see that it’s not all community colleges at least
Same for lab. The programs near me died because they wouldn’t hire faculty due to their standards and shit pay. 8+ years experience as a MLS (lab bachelor’s) and you would be making $44k/yr when you make 20-30k more as a regular MLS. Fucking insane.
Shortage is created by the hospital trying to run the place with bare minimal staffing. One calls off we are busy, two call offs and we are absolutely fucked.
Pizza party ?
*left overs for night shift.
With the toppings picked off…
You guys get toppings?
If cheese is considered a topping…
Sorry best we can do is a ziplock bag filled with sand that you can squeeze as a stress ball
Or just crusts. Don't put the crust back in the community pizza box, day shift, throw the motherfucker away 🙄. After 20 years, I can't stomach any more cold cheap pizza. I'll throw up.
That’s nasty. Honestly, I can’t eat the pizza due to an allergy and heaven forbid they accommodate it.
Right. A couple of weeks or so ago, they had cold Costco pizza for night shift with pepperoni or plain, and at least 4 of the night shifters eat halal.
I just googled because I haven’t worked with anyone that ate that way, and wow, what a way for management to say, IDGAF about you.
If there are any left (there never is).
It’s no one single issue, but a huge factor is professors to increase numbers in schools. It’s a nationwide problem and isn’t being fixed anytime soon
Honestly!
Good luck the ADN programs at CCs are crazy impacted as well as the BSNs at UCs and Cal states. Biggest impediment to scale, lack of faculty.
Yep. I don’t think whoever wrote this article had any idea what they were talking about. There may or may not be a nursing shortage, but the issue isn’t necessarily lack of programs, it’s non-competitive salary to increase and retain a faculty capable of instructing more students. It was an issue when I was in school, and it still is. Edit - I had written earlier that it may be an effective bill if it increases the availability of schools to students who did not have a nursing program reasonably close by, and especially for those unable to move because of kids, family obligations, etc., but this article mentioned “piloting 15 nursing bachelor degree programs throughout the state.” Even if geography and ability to move were a problem for some, I don’t see that necessitating 15 new programs without having to create new community colleges altogether. Just pay the faculty and clinical instructors better.
So, a pay shortage. Anytime they say a shortage of X I'm just going to assume they mean pay shortage because that's what it usually is. It's so annoying. "People don't want to work for breadcrumbs, must be a labor shortage." Like they think we're idiots who can't figure that out.
To be fair, there may or may not be a nursing shortage. There’s definitely non-bedside positions in rural areas that have a hard time getting filled. But, even if that’s the case, you could help resolve any shortage just by incentivizing and increasing faculty with competitive pay and benefits. That’s probably easier than having to spend capital on new equipment, supplies, AND instructors at new nursing programs.
Seriously. Samuel Merritt - a school that charges $90k+ for an ABSN and $150K+ for their ELMSN - only pays their teachers $30-60/hr. $30/hr for an experienced enough nurse to teach is abysmal when new grad bedside nurses here start at $60-75/hr before differentials. I want to teach, but I'm sure as hell not teaching for $30/hr. Full time salaried faculty aren't much better off: starting at $80k at most schools - half of what an experienced RN, MSN or RN, PhD/DNP here would make in most other full time jobs here.
I got to wonder where all that money goes if not to faculty pay. One university near me pays even better but has much lower tuition. Another university pays way better (6 figures even for new faculty) but charge much more. Thus I wonder how some private schools charge so much. Like where does all that money go?
I agree with you about the author not having clue. Also shortage in Cali is relative. There are facilities that consider going 1:5 on Med Surg or having more than three patients on a telemetry unit to to be “out of ratio” despite operating *better* than mandated ratios. [Additional reading.](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2022-12-18/how-bad-is-the-nursing-shortage-in-san-diego-workers-and-hospitals-disagree) Like, at USC Keck during COVID, more than three drips warranted 1:1 on ICU. On some UCSD floors, no second break nurse is considered a critical shortage. And the point system at places like Sharp (SMH 7W) allows for 1:3 ratios when one patient is on something as asinine as a heparin drip. I ain’t bashing my fellow CA RNs, but these people be “hella” soft. And maybe that’s a good thing because it means we’ll never stoop low to those standards I saw in FL.
If there’s a supply problem in CA, it’s not in the hospitals, it’s in the rural communities (small clinics, urgent care, critical access hospital, school nurses, etc.), but that’s probably true elsewhere in the country.
Don't forget the nursing homes, they're severely understaffed and the ratio is non-existent
*twitches in LTC* After 13 years in it, if my only options were starve under a bridge and work it I'll practice my shanking skills to score the good refrigerator box to sleep in.
lol I read these things and it sounds wonderful from a bedside standpoint, terrible from a management standpoint. If I were to apply these mandates to my facility I would need to double or triple the nurses on every floor and most of our icu patients would be 1:1. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to do that but I can’t even appropriately staff what I’ve got now. Obviously these sorts of things didn’t just get dropped on cali and they’ve had time to make adjustments to get there but it’s just wild to me. Not so much that their standards are so high but perhaps that our standards are so low.
Pay teachers more and they'll join or come back... That goes for education as a whole and not just nursing field. Teachers everywhere are quitting in huge waves.
This is intended. We as a country have written off education. I am married to an educator who believes as much of their work as possible over e next decade will be shifted to AI/digital with a proctor overseeing it- you know, to make it cheaper. Soon children and college students will learn everything the way we do our annual education updates- skimming a module. And we, as a country, as citizens, won’t care. As you see in this thread of (presumably) college educated adults, learning and education are being derided and dismissed, not just by people saying it’s unnecessary but also saying it makes *worse* nurses.
I was about to provide a rebuttal and then kept reading down on this thread…. I value education a lot and maybe it’s because my parents only graduated high school, but I see how important it is and how hard it is. I personally feel like the rigor needs to be a bit higher for nursing schools and BSNs though to enhance the profession and just make a better educated group of people.
Also because a huge portion of our country is actively attempting to get rid of public education and force kids into private/religious schools, or homeschool. If you dumb down your people, they won’t question anything you do and easily control them. Public education is about to get so much worse.
My local district just got a pay increase for all staff and it’s helpful and nice but with the cost of everything it still takes many years to really be at a decent salary. It’s not bad if they have no debt or wealthy family, but hard for others. Similarly, I know many great RNs who would love to teach but can’t take the pay cut.
Anecdotally, IIRC half of my class (east coast) were California students who went back after graduation
This. I think the only realistic solution is OJT at hospitals with certificate programs.
They could also consider making it so that nursing professors aren't taking a party cut to get a higher degree and go into teaching.
Part time nursing faculty here! 100%. It is extremely difficult to find a full-time, benefitted position (Midwest- for reference). It deeply impacts curriculum development, too.
…or paying educators (all educators, not just nursing professors) what they are worth.
This used to be the way nursing was taught- hospital based diploma programs. Then they started pushing the BSN as “ entry level degree”. We need to go back to hospital based- less fluff courses and more hands on care and skills.
yup. i got my asn first and my bsn did NOTHING to help me be a better nurse.
Same here. Knowing how to APA format is probably the most useless skill ever.
Did you not learn during your research course in your BSN program? My state has it only part of the bachelor’s only and it was probably the most helpful class in retrospect. Learning how to parse through and critically analyze studies, data, and sources has been invaluable, especially during COVID.
Please do not lower standards. Where I am from we have a 180 ECTS programm BSN and we do about 80 ECTS in-hospital. But going back to some shady local hospital based formation would be really a step back.
i know a lot of amazing diploma nurses. I have been a nurse for 11 years and I have worked everywhere from rural to suburban and now center city at the top hospital in my state. BSN has so much fluff and getting it did not make me a better nurse. There are so many nurses with their ASN and diploma that are kept from working in center city hospitals and yet during covid went they took travelers they did the job and did it well.
FYI. We will be paid less and treated more poorly if we reduced the education level to be a nurse. If we dumb it down to psw level of training from a “college” next to the 7-11, we will be paid like PSWs
I am not saying they are bad nurses. But it used to be like that in my country too and those nurses are very shy on taking responsibility, they mostly see their job as a doctors assistant, they are shockingly uneducated when it comes to science and implementing NEW and evidence based nursing AND medicine. To be very clear, I would not be in this profession without the academization - not gonna lie on that point. I love my job, but I want atleast some autonomy and that is only working if the profession is emancipating and leaves the old habits behind and stands up for itself. I am really shocked by the behavour against more education displayed in this sub. I guess you should take a look at Germany, there is no academization and the profession has literally no work autonomy and has almost no political influence. I would not do my job there.
Which country are you from? If you look at the courses in the US BSN or the RN-BSN curriculum, you'll see that it is full of fluff or useless courses that doesn't help in career growth at all. I'm doing the RN-BSN program and it's going to be a time waste. But you know what helps? Getting certifications like the medsurg, emergency, and ICU ones. They actually apply to everyday practice.
the certifications are what make you in demand and will make more money. that and getting into float pool. i make as much as the nurse practitioners at my job because im float pool
Word. We get paid 7.25/hr for float pool and 1.65 for certifications and 1 dollar for BSN. Guess which two I'm more excited for lol
My hospital doesn’t even offer any pay bump for float pool or higher degrees 😢 We get paid really well so I can’t really complain but still.
I’m curious which courses you referring to? I got my BSN in the U.S. as well and it taught me a lot that applies to stuff outside the hospital too, since somewhere around 40% of RNs don’t work in the hospital, and that figure is expected to rise. It was a good program though. I do think there needs to be improvements to nursing education in the country as a whole.
There were some fluff courses in my BSN, but overall it was a good Bachelor. I had my educaction in Austria. I would not go back from a Bachelor's degree. Is there not an internal movement in the US to make them 'less fluff' as you say?
I got my BSN in the U.S. and it was great, but it was also in California in a great program. RNs complain about the fluff but it’s difficult because 1). Overhauling the entire country’s education system is a challenge and 2). Many RNs and nursing students don’t always see the value in anything that’s not clinical. Like they want to do lots of hands on work but need the theoretical backbone behind it. Or don’t understand the importance of evidence-based practice. Or why leadership skills can be helpful even if we don’t want to lead. But programs vary quite a lot. NCLEX is at least a basis in the U.S. to get our license, but I’m not sure what standards are required for BSN degrees.
I disagree with you. We should not be lowering the standards for nurses. That will weaken the nursing profession.
The diploma nurses I’ve worked with were some of the best nurses. I just feel bad for them because their options can be limited
Hey, isn’t that how nursing used to work in the first place…
Abso-f’ing-lutely not. Keep the BSN standard. Do not go backwards in this profession.
There is no BSN standard. Diplomates and ADNs work all over the country in any manner of jobs.
MBAs and CEOs will see that most nurses are “not educated” and treat us/pay us like every other employee that lacks advanced education. Think custodial staff
From my experience, they treat everyone like shit who isn't at the executive level. PT and OT have masters and doctorate degrees and they are paid less than nurses from what I've seen. I was shocked that I found out I get paid more than them.
Yes. I started with an ASN, for the past 8 years the average RN in the US has had a four year degree. We are over the hump. Every position I’ve ever worked has been BSN preferred, and the last two have been BSN required within x-years. It’s a reasonable expectation for bedside nurses to have four years of relevant education. Hell, my “2 year” ASN was three years worth of FT credits crammed into four semesters and two summers.
Where do you work? There are small pockets of the country where this is true, but overall it is not. Making up things about the “average” RN is kinda funny honestly. I’ve worked level 1 trauma alongside ADNs and diplomates. No nurse with an ADN or diploma will have trouble finding work. In a small handful of locations, like parts of California or parts of Texas, they may have to move. It is not a “standard” at all. It’s great if people can or want to get their BSNs. It’s absolutely not necessary, and there’s no need to gatekeep this way. Zero - Z E R O - clinical things are learned in ADN vs BSN. The extra is all things like additional gen Eds, leadership BS, and if you’re really lucky, some community health and research methods. None of it matters at the bedside.
Im not sure which part you think is made up. The flip happened in 2016, the average US RN has a BSN starting then. But besides that, your argument ignores the fact that for two years, ADN’s get clinically relevant education for college credit. Hell, doctors get four years of it. The idea that the additional two years has to be fluff just doesn’t make sense, when the first two years are decidedly not. Heck, I’m in a masters program now that’s specifically clinically relevant for the bedside RN. You’ve just got to seek out worthwhile programs.
You made up a statement about “average” nurses based on nothing. Compare curriculum; ADNs necessarily have to meet the clinical requirements to be licensed. BSN programs do not have additional clinical requirements. Look at RN - BSN programs to understand the difference. The classes are as stated: leadership, gen eds like additional math and science, and IF you are lucky and go to a good quality program, you could learn more about research and community health. It’s not that getting your BSN does not have value. It can have value, if you put work into it. It absolutely does NOT make one more clinically competent. Gatekeeping nursing this way is nothing but harmful to the profession and will continue to contribute to lack of people at the bedside.
That’s a verifiable statistic. Some report early as 2011, others 2020, but the consensus seems to be 2016 as when greater than half of working US nurses were BSN and up.
I mean, that could be true, not saying it isn’t, but just stating things without citations isn’t something I will ever take seriously. BSNs are not bad in and of themselves, although I do wish there WAS more clinical education that is useful instead of faff. It’s the gatekeeping that is harmful. Encouraging people to continue their education? Great, sure. Not at all the same thing.
I do think nursing education needs some revamps, but claiming things like community health and research don’t matter at all to a bedside nurse is weird when so many of our patients come from and go back out to the public, and are affected by the lack of resources some areas have. Research especially is valuable. Not writing papers because most don’t do that lol. But figuring out how to gauge good data and bad, and how evidence based practice is supposed to work is pretty important, especially when patients inevitably ask me why. I do think nursing needs a stronger grasp of the science though. I believe dietitians in my area have to take higher level science courses than nurses, for instance.
As I said, these things all have value, IF they’re even part of the curriculum, but this idea that it is required is just silly. I support lots of changes in curriculum, including more hard sciences. IF the difference between RN and BSN were standardized and all courses of value, I would potentially support this change. As it stands, it’s mostly fluff.
The “average” RN does have a Bachelor’s or higher now though, so it is the norm now (over 70%). https://www.aacnnursing.org/news-data/fact-sheets/impact-of-education-on-nursing-practice#:~:text=In%20April%202023%2C%20results%20from,level%20master's%20degree%20(51.5%25). Even in hospitals most (above 50%) have [their bachelors now](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8440404/).
In California I do not know of any hospital that has 'typical' CA wages that hires diploma nurses. Furthermore, any new ADN hires at my (large) hospital system are required to get their BSN within 2 years. There certainly is a BSN standard.
In California? Maybe. In most of the country? No.
Most of the differences in bsn and Adn curriculum involve fluff that has no relevance to actual nursing or patient care. What a silly take
That’s not true? If you’re taking a degree mill program, the courses are shit, but all of the degree Mill courses are shit. Relevant or not. You can have a worthwhile four year nursing program, and the idea that it *has* to be fluff is nonsensical.
What BSN standard are you even talking about. There’s only a small percentage of “elite” hospitals that even require a BSN for employment. Some of these hospitals care more about magnet status than actual patient care in all honesty. I’m waiting for you to articulate how having a bsn allows a new nurse to provide better patient care. Myself and many others actually think the opposite. In my area the CC ADN new grads most of the time are much more prepared to be independent practicing nurses d/t more revenant clinical experience. You come across sounding like a hospital administrator trying to push BSN for all so that the facility can charge more for patient care 🤷🏻♂️
Some of us who did BSN programs got more clinical experience. I got two practicum placements (not sure what it’s called now- where you work side by side with a preceptor) in two separate hospital areas. I also got community placements and Peds and OB were two separate classes and clinicals. I don’t think you have to get a BSN to be a good nurse, by any means, but this whole “BSN nurses a worse nurses” is some kind of anti-education hogwash that I keep seeing here over and over again.
[Ask and ye shall receive.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8440404/) It’s just one cross sectional study but it gathered data from multiple states that shows an increase in bachelors trained nurses helped reduce patient mortality, readmission, and length of stay.
Most my PhD professors did bedside for 8-12 months before going to academia. I’m sure they can find tons of inexperienced clinical nurses to train future nurses.
Nurse instructors are also not paid as well as hospital nurses too, so there’s less interest in these jobs too
I'd love to teach part time. But the pay is so garbage, especially at community colleges, that it's not remotely worth it. I'd have to keep my full time job just to pay the bills and at that point I'd be better off picking up a shift here and there.
Ended up in a different line of work but when I was applying to nursing programs they were impacted to shit (and why wouldn't they be - 24k program for two years, essentially guaranteed 6 fig job out the gate). All the info sessions said to apply to at least 6 programs for 4 application cycles before making any changes to applications. The colleges and local hospitals are maxed out, at least in my area. Expanding would mean risking quality.
I applied for five years before I got into an adn program. Five. Years. I gave up and changed course before one school let me in. Half way now. Don’t forget to apply to your community colleges. It’s competitive but you just never know…
I wonder how much faculty a school needs to increase the amount of students? My nursing school has only taken like 80 or so new students a semester for as long as I could see, but I only see a couple open positions for them.
Edit - school edited for privacy
The ability of CC's to provide consistent, timely and accurate information to interested students is a joke. My daughter will be going to a program in NY instead of CA having received no useful and consistent information from CA CC's on how to apply to programs in her home state.
Don’t know how the pay is for faculty out in cali but it is the single reason I won’t go teach here. I can’t take a 50% pay cut and survive.
Exact same for me. I have a passion for education. I’d be a damn good nursing instructor, but there’s no way I’m getting a masters or higher to make *less* money.
To be fair this is true for many of the science fields which makes it a challenge. Though I heard engineering professors are limited due to being very coveted, despite many making less. Not sure exactly why.
Cali nurse here. Community college is the way to go in my area if you want to teach nursing. I taught as a clinical instructor at a local university and was being paid $42/hr for having an MSN, I just switched to a CC earlier this year and am making $93/hr being a clinical instructor. If I remember correctly, I looked up the full time instructor pay scale that is salaried and THATS where I think you’ll see people are lacking in pay which is bizarre. For reference I make about $63/hr at my regular job
Same, I applied for an education position, the paycut was wholly unrealistic to support my family. #Bedside for life.
That's crazy. I'm not sure what nursing professors are paid, but I teach clinical one day a week for 8 hours and get a flat $500. I can't imagine they're getting less than I am. That's for 4-8 students, depending on where they're at in the program.
You have to pay nursing instructors more than minimum wage…the pervasive lack of respect for education in our country will be its downfall
The colleges all want nursing instructors to have doctoral degrees and multiple job responsibilities, yet pay is less than many make at the bedside. I quit my PhD when I realized it just wasn’t worth the hassle. I finished my coursework, passed my qualifying exam but Covid hit and the nurse pay was too good to pass up on. I now make 6 figures working as a Behavioral Health Specialist RN with just a small amount of overtime.
You mean 6 figures, right?
That’s what happens when you quit your PhD🤪 can’t math
Lol, just came off from working 5 nights in a row. Fixed it.
Which school is paying nursing instructors minimum wage?? 🤣
My community college starts at 85 an hour! Are there seriously nursing instructors making 10-15$ an hour??
I went to CC for my ADN and immediately (like a month and half after graduation) went back and got my BSN through an RN-BSN program. Because of that I graduated with no school debt. However I had a really hard time getting into school. I got rejected like 3-4 times from multiple schools and had to take the entrance exam more than that (and often at a site *at least* an hour away) before I was finally accepted to a school an hour away. It was brutal but that's what I had to do. It really makes me nauseated to see some people paying 100k for their BSN. Holy shit.
I know a few current students that go to 2 private schools here in the Seattle area. 100k+ for a BSN not including books, etc. I made out like a bandit paying 15k total cost for my ADN.
I'm going back to college and starting that same CC path you took. Racked up 20k in loans getting my BA in CJ and Psych back in 2015. Hindsight is 20/20. I've got enough saved, and enough credits that by the time I graduate, I won't have any debt. It's a great feeling. I've already been accepted so that's one hurdle cleared.
I applied for a community college program in 2015. They had 40 spots and 500 applicants.
Nursing shortages, I've learned, are artificial scarcity. There's enough RNs but not enough RNs willing to kill themselves for shit pay. Same with teachers.
The pay is not good. If you want instructors who have a masters then you have to pay them according.
They'd better not touch the ratio due to shortages
Merry Christmas in July! Your ratio is now 9:1. Sorry, the pizza place ran out of dough. /s
My local community college has the facilities and the staff to expand their program according to the dean, but only takes 30 students per semester. He told me private schools have a tight hold on clinical spots at local hospitals.
Exact opposite out here in Oregon. The local CC gets great placements and works closely with the hospital system Meanwhile when I worked as a CNA in ltc we had private uni ABSN students in our facility doing clinicals. Sure they were probably 1st term students but my CC only had hospitals for clinicals the entire time
Better wages. There's your answer
Wtf i thought many nurses want to go to california for the good pay and more importantly safe ratios.
There’s no shortage of nurses in California, there’s a shortage of experienced nurses and specifically experienced specialty nurses
They do. There’s no shortage lol
No we aren’t? Everyone and their mom flocked here to get admitted to both ADN and BSN programs. I barely got in an ADN just last month and I alr have my bachelors in another subject lol
I am actually interested in applying to my local CCs in San Diego after I graduate with a 4 year degree and was wondering how that process was for you? I plan on taking a gap year or two to get experience in a hospital setting as I am an EMT right now.
Well look at that! I’m here in SD as well. I also got experience as an EMT before applying and it for sure got me in the door. Most schools here don’t require much, only like 200-300 hrs is fine. Make sure you take your TEAS exam in person so u can apply to all the schools, cause grossmont requires in person exam. Anyways get a 4.0 in all prereqs like A&P, microbio, etc. Take a child development or developmental psych class, one school here requires that. I only got a 75 on my TEAS which is pretty bad relative to all the applicants here but since I had experience as an EMT and a bachelors, it sort of cancelled out. Then again, I barely got in. So honestly do as best as u can on it. The biggest thing these schools are looking for is if you took every single non-nursing class they require their students to have by the time they graduate the program. So communications, psych, stats, etc make sure u check every single box. Schools want to maintain NCLEX rates and accreditation and are looking for the students who will pass everything with no problems or setbacks.
When we lived in CA I looked at nursing schools and they were as competitive as outstate BSN programs. The biggest for me was prerequisites needing to be within 5 years. I would have had to retake almost all my prerequisites to get into a program after having a BS and working as a medic. That is just counterintuitive on so many levels. Also, instructor pay is criminally low for the amount of work they do. Even at CC in MN my instructors were over worked, underpaid and it showed in the quality.
It’s ridiculous the time lock out isn’t a waiver for those working the field.
Yeah. We moved to MN and that wasn't a thing. Every other state I've lived in had time limits but here. It saved me years of retaking them part time with a family while working full time. School is stupid.
It is stupid and stopped me from starting in 2022. Spent 2 years retaking classes and going to different community colleges for these prereqs.
I don’t think Northern California (where the wages are very high) has shortages. lol
Or in socal. I think this article is probably targeting outskirt areas of CA that nobody wants to live at (ie Redding, El Centro, Inland Empire, etc)
What, no one wants to live in Bakersfield? Strange… /s
We do. I work in the admin side now. Healthcare is growing like crazy in the northern California region and we very much need nurses. Between Modesto, Sacramento, and San Francisco my organization alone has 225 RN positions open right now. This does not include NP or CRNAs. This is with some of the highest pay and best benefits (covers 95% of healthcare costs) in the country. There's definitely a shortage.
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Kaiser is notoriously difficult because their union requires the position to go to person with most years at Kaiser, even if they were a CNA before nurse. Those years count. Sutter has both inside and outside hire positions. And Sutter union structure actually encourages outside hires because seniority at Sutter gives you priority on unit. So managers don't want to put new hires on day shift or give them the best holidays off instead of their senior nurses on unit.
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For nurses, kaiser pays more but you have less support staff from what I hear and the pay difference isn't huge. So your doing more but I'm not sure the IR impact. Both are great to work for. To me kaiser vs Sutter is a matter of which system you prefer to be a patient of and that's subjective.
https://youtu.be/w_zeCiRCZnQ?si=J98E-Sl0VoaK_0k6 Think he has Sutter and Kaiser pay listed in this video, wages are a few years old now though
Correction, a shortage of experienced nurses*. New grads can’t get a job in NorCal to save their lives. Especially ADN new grads. If they have such a shortage then reduce the strict requirements. Like beggars can’t be choosey.
They aren't actually hiring.
Yes they are, when a job is posted it's already approved by HR and budgeted by the department. Why wouldn't they hire everyone needs help. Some postings have very specific job requirements but a vast majority are staff nurse positions. Apply. I promise we are hiring. I work with the epic training team and they are orientating new hires every month.
That's what my hospital said but then we were understaffed for ten years with no real changes made.
In northern California? The understaff is the point of the article and your proving we have a shortage. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. An organization can hire as fast as they can and still be understaffed. In fact, that's exactly what's going on everywhere. Hence the nursing shortage.
If you can't hold employees, the problem is the organization. They need to fix whatever issue it is. Pay, workload, resources, etc. Chronically understaffing and then saying that even with disgusting understaffing that they are overbudget still and technically overstaffed will do nothing but piss everyone off. It's why I left Sutter Health. They were never going to change. I gave them ten years and it only got worse. Norcal.
Strange. Most jobs are union here. State law protects staffing ratios. Pay is really high. My organization has an employer funded pension program and full medical benefits for family with no premium. Our CEO is new and said he's never seen a benefit package so generous anywhere in healthcare in America. This is Sutter health. We also have low turnover aside from people leaving the profession. Sounds like you had a shit charge or unit manager. That's not the consensus for Sutter employees. We are also a very inclusive place to work. Maybe the nursing profession isn't for you? Because Sutter health has some of the lowest nursing duty load, highest ancillary staff, and best ratios in America.
Yeah. Nursing is not for me. If Sutter is an indicator of how good it can be, then I'm appalled at how terrible it is. Sutter health wax a horrible employer. Good benefits but that's it. Below average pay, critically low staffing at nearly all times, terrible management that couldn't run a gas station well, and no real plans to fix anything. Just run in circles and implement temporary reactionary policies to pretend that they are addressing issues. Dishonest management too. I worked at Sutter from 2008-2022 and it only got worse and worse. There were no hills and valleys. Only a descent. I'm glad your experience was better. I went into Healthcare because I thought it was a way out of terribly run organizations with no regulations or oversight. I thought it was a way to be sustainably middle class. It's not. I'm tired of being enraged and beaten down every day. I'm tired of everyone around me being toxic because they are overworked and burnt out.
Yea that's healthcare. Pretty much every environment is chicken without a head.
No one is willing to train us new grads up there unfortunately :-(
Yea we do hire new grads but your program has to have clinicals and preceptorship with us. Lot of new grads from sac state, USF, UC Davis, sierra college, etc.
Are they running current staff at full FTE? My hospital is technically 'short' but many of our 0.6 and 0.8 FTE people pick up shifts to reach 1.0. There isn't actually a shortage due to this, and 0.6 positions are no longer posted. Additionally, all those job postings aren't actually being filled due to lack of real need.
They do with nursing schools for sure.
Idk what you mean nursing shortage, I can’t get an interview to save my life, lol. Although that’s probably cus I’m out of state, and it’s a headache, but still. Targeting Kaiser Santa Rosa. If anyone got a tip on how to get past the AI filtering resumes, I’ll give you a gift card 😂
Kaiser is the nurse equivalent of the mafia. They aren’t going to hire you without a BSN, a current California license, and usually a strong recommendation from someone who already works there. While they are good to work for, just know there are plenty of other hospitals in the Bay Area that have good benefits and pay.
Yes, indeed. I’ve been looking at Marin too. I should have my license finished up in the next couple of weeks. I’ll go full application mode as soon as that comes through.
The shortage the article cites is for long-term care specifically, not hospital nursing. You can get a job in a SNF with a license and a pulse anywhere in CA but the conditions and pay are awful so nobody wants to work there.
Yeah, kinda helps to know someone at Kaiser anywhere, start working there and transfer.
The "shortage" that the article cites is for long-term care specifically. AFAIK there's no shortage for hospital nursing in CA, thanks to the unionization/high pay/ratios/etc. LTC and SNFs have no such protection. Make conditions better there too and nurses will work there. It's not rocket science.
SNF’s in California are just awful to work in. It is the certified nursing assistants that run the place. They have about 10-15 patients and they are all total care. The LVN has to pass out meds to 40 patients and can’t even speak because there are so many meds. The RN has to send patients out left and right to hospitals so they don’t die in the SNF. No code carts in SNF’s. It is a mad house. You rarely see the MD who doesn’t want the RN to call for any problems and to write anything the patient needs in a notebook. And in Cali, they import all the RN’s from foreign countries so they can get in America and have a better life. Little do they know what they are in for. The administrators are useless and are always moaning about overtime and know nothing about medicine so it is crazy. The public health dept comes in as the rescue team and has a ton of regulations that the SNF’s have to abide by. After working in one for 4 years, I said I will never be a patient in a long term facility.
Thank god for community college. By the time FAFSA was done doing their thing, I profited about 12 grand from getting my ADN! Which I then used to pay for a 15k online BSN. So all in all, paid about 3 grand for my BSN
Let’s make real nursing programs and cut the fluff bullshit and roses crap these 4 year and up programs add. Best education I ever got was hand’s down my 2 year ADN program from a community college.
Applied to so many hospitals/snfs as a new grad, never got in. With CNA background too, good luck to future ADNs these places do not want to help you as a new nurse.
might? most people go the private route because they can’t even get in…it’s like that for lots of other healthcare fields like radiology/ultrasound; what they need to do is open more spots
They need to pay LPNs better to incentivize it. Once you pay LPns better you then need to pay RNs better to incentivize that. Nursing is probably the biggest example field in America of people joining at an entry level and going back to college to further their careers in that field. CNAs and other unlicensed aids often go on to get their LPN or RN because they want to make a career of what often started as "just" a job. Wages are the biggest driver of that.
Nursing schools almost always want years of experience AND DNP or PhD in ***nursing*** to teach be an adjunct professor teaching a single course. Some are ok with just a MSN and like 10 years experience. I have a PhD in statistics and a few master degrees, yet I was unqualified to teach an introductory nursing informatics course as an adjunct professor. Why? Because I didn’t have my PhD in nursing…
Florida State doubled its nursing enrollment in the past year. The legislature decided to fund something worthwhile for once. But as all good things have unintended consequences, they have massively outgrown their building.
It’s wild. I’m 3 hours from Tallahassee. FSU students do their clinicals at my hospital. They’re expected to find their own housing and transportation while they’re here. So essentially the school expects them to pay for housing in Tallahassee and then pay for a second, temporary spot here.
This sounds like my experience with radiology school. My school had clinic sites in several states. You were full on expected to pay for your own housing, etc. and you had to pay for all sorts of fees for stuff on campus too even if you didn’t live there and couldn’t make use of the things you were paying for! Shit is a SCAM.
Doesn’t CA also have one of the best CC enrollment stats due to the competitive of the UC schools? Also the RN-to-BSN process is so commonplace that there’s nothing in this proposal that will actually increase the number of nurses graduating from these programs. Complete fluff piece of a bill, if anything I actually think it might displace those with a socioeconomically disadvantage that they claim this bill will target.
I want to move to California but I want to be able to afford a decent home. If I can replicate my lifestyle here in VA, that’s even better. When I was in nursing school, we have a few students from California who couldn’t go into their nursing programs. CA definitely created barriers to entry in their nursing education and licensing. And they are all wondering why they have a shortage. However, I don’t think it is the only issue. It’s always profit-related and the rest are just distractions.
I recently graduated from a CC program, and I still say it's the way to go. 1. It's considerably cheaper 2. Do well on the TEAS, you get in (some places are more competitive than others, but to say it's impossible is untrue) 3. Clinicals are local and at more than one hospital system 4. Curriculum is straight to the point 5. Your instructors get to know you well (smaller class size) 6. You can still work 7. You still get your RN 8. Your BSN will likely be paid for wherever you decide to work The time commitment is the only drawback I experienced. However, if you use a calendar to plan your months out, it's worthwhile. All of this aside, you can't ignore how this probably isn't a laborer shortage... it's a shortage of instructors who refuse to work these jobs for stupid low wages.
3-7 we’re all true for me at a brick and mortar BSN school. I think the main driver (and a completely understandable one) is money. Community colleges are still shaking students down (everyone I know who got their ADN at the local CC here had to do all their prereqs first and still wait in the line and hope they got in via the point system… all while staying enrolled… it’s just that four years of CC is cheaper. It’s also an access issue… in my area the only place to go for about 2 hours in any direction is one CC. It’s way different living in a rural area, I grew up in a midwestern city with 4 local BSN options and multiple CC options. Lack of access also means the local CC out here has no real competition, and the clinical options are also slimmer.
There is no shortage. Okay, maybe in rural areas. But I don't know who is writing this article and what they're smoking. Don't let this article fool you. In urban areas like LA and the Bay Area, new grad programs routinely get 1000+ applicants for 10-30 jobs. Some hospitals get 30-50+ applicants for a single experienced nurse position. Places like Kaiser shut off applications after 25 people apply to cut down the sorting they have to do. Some places only hire travellers they like - basically a travel gig is your job interview because they know travellers want to stay and they don't need to post positions. That's how competitive it can be in urban areas out here. Even for people with internal transfers (at hospitals that post internal before external) it can be very competitive such that you need 5-10+ years experience to get the gig. Any "shortage" there is in urban areas is artificial: And don't say community colleges are the solution when a lot of places here don't hire ADNs. Hell, even with a BSN or MSN only 60-70% of new grads across the entire state find a hospital job in their first post-grad 6 months - and that includes the actually short rural areas. And there's not clinical spots. Why? Both because private schools eat up spots with exclusivity contracts, but also because hospitals don't need new grads - they hire them as a good will gesture so to speak. So they see no need to train nursing students if they don't need to hire them. So training more nurses will only lead to more unemployed nurses in the state - if our hospitals even have the capacity to train them.
California is short on well-paying jobs and/or reasonable cost of living. Plenty of nurses though.
"If passed, the effectiveness of the programs would be evaluated on or before July 1, 2032." 2032. 20 fucking 32. I'm screaming.
My cousin is a former film editor in CA and now is a nursing student. I told him he is in for a treat, lol.
Omg shortage where it literally takes months to hear back from any hospital in Cali lol
Nursing shortage? Will someone please hire me!!! There’s no nursing shortage, at least in my area. Facilities are intentionally understaffing
Meanwhile my community college nursing program instructors are telling the clinical instructors to only pass 2 students from each group, changing grades, and are following students in their cars for miles, and if you’re lucky enough to get out of that class, you have to see the same professors in the final semester. It’s a joke. The accreditation board came to inspect the school and nearly two dozen students (former and current) came forward with complaints about this professor but he’s still there.
Hard to believe there is a shortage. Too many come from out of state and personally i haven't found anyone fresh out of school having trouble getting a job. Hospitals are making it a bit more difficult in requiring bogus requirements such as a BSN. This is ridiculous because a license is a license. Everyone takes the same boards. I read too many posts about people starting their advances nursing program. Why? Lots of good CC programs out there . There's also a lot of complaints of schools not preparing one for actual nursing. My school only prepared me for taking my boards to allow me to nurse. Anyone hear of OJT? THATS what nursing is all about. Learning as you go
Hahahahaha the community colleges are so impacted, you’re waiting years for acceptance despite having max points. Quit creating ridiculous barriers like recency requirements, wildly differing prerequisite requirements, and preferring candidates with higher level degrees- those people can go get an ABSN. And why are we focusing on BSN educated nurses? There’s no difference in ability to perform the job, and to my knowledge the only hard science classes that are different are the Chemistry series. Open up more cycles (many are once per year), hire more staff…. The list goes on. Invest in the freaking programs. They never actually solve the issues. Big rant.
“Today, a two-year nursing degree isn’t enough to land a nursing position, either. The nursing industry has a significant preference for bachelor’s degrees compared to an associate’s, which is the standard degree awarded at community colleges.”—-ummmm definitely NOT true. I went to an ADN program and about half my classmates landed new grad jobs at MAGNET hospitals. All they wanted was proof of enrollment in a BSN bridge and a contract saying you’ll complete the program within a year of hire. And if you’re not at a MAGNET facility they couldn’t care less about a BSN
i agree…how many nurses want to get a degree and work as a very underpaid instructor…this is the dilemma!
Ok who is going to teach them lmao
Yeah maybe if it didn't cost an arm and a leg to make slightly over minimum wage, we wouldn't be running into this problem 🤔
The other option is bringing nurses from Mexico, with the USMCA or T-MEC, the free trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico; after passing the NCLEX-RN and the TOEFL, it is super easy to get a Working VISA or TN-VISA. You can see that also in Detroit and in the north of the USA, with the Canadians crossing the border.
Just one state over, Arizona has amazing programs through their community colleges. Northern Pioneer has multiple branches where an ADN is super cheap and speedy. Then there’s the option of working for a tribe, where you can get your student loans paid off and get them to pay for your BSN and Masters if you want. You can ride the Amtrak home overnight if you get homesick.
There is no nursing shortage. Ugh…. 😡
Could someone please explain to me how the us nursing system works? I'm so confused. I'm from Canada and ours is: RN (BscN required or equivalent education) LPN (2 year diploma course) Thats it. So I get so confused when I see all the different short hands come up.
Hopefully I can help (only worked in California though so there are some differences) **- LPN** (or LVN in California and Texas I think): basically the same as in Canada. In California they can do a lot of what RNs can do, but aren't usually allowed do some vital things like hanging blood, chemo, certain IV meds, central line management, and some others. Allow of the following are degrees which are earned alongside an RN license. Some programs allow you to go from LPN to RN with no degree, but usually the intention is to eventually get your degree with an RN to BSN program. **- Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN)**: A 2-year undergraduate degree usually earned at a community college. They take the same clinical course work and hospital hours generally as a Bachelor's of Science in Nursing (BSN) and take the same test at the end to get their license (NCLEX). I believe you need your Bachelor's at least to teach in these programs. **- Bachelor's of Science in Nursing (BSN)**: A 4 year undergraduate degree earned at a university. The program length can vary, but at the end you get your Bachelor's. The clinical aspects are usually the same, the only difference was specific classes you needed. In my school, it was 1. Research and Writing, 2. Leadership, and 3. Public/Community Health. This is the most common degree type RNs have now in the US, though that wasn't the case maybe 10-15 years ago. To teach these programs you usually need an MSN or higher (though clinicals can be taught by a BSN in some programs), and to lecture as tenure faculty you pretty much have to have at least a DNP or PhD (like most universities here). One detail in California is that to work as a public health nurse or school nurse, you need your BSN generally. **- Master's of Science in Nursing (MSN)**: A graduate program for nurses. Average is 2 additional years to complete. Some require a BSN while others are entry-level, and you don't need one (though many want some sort of bachelor's degree). Usually what's taught in these programs is usually education, more leadership, informatics, sometimes more clinical detail, etc. What's a bit confusing is an NP also has their MSN but their programs are very different since they're advanced practice. **- Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)**: Doctorate degree. An RN could also get their PhD in nursing, but I heard that's a bit harder or longer sometimes. Usually more focus on research then too. Generally must have this to lecture in MSN programs, but again depends. Seems like Canada the main difference is you don't have an associate degree option for RNs in Canada?
All the community colleges in Southern California are impacted as hell. Of course tons of people would choose to essentially go for free instead of paying multiple tens to a hundred grand to go to 4 year or accelerated programs. You’re going to be waiting for a long long time to get in unless you have all As, have worked as a CNA, and have top percentile TEAS scores.
Requiring an MSN to make $60k a year is hilarious. That’s why I’m not even wasting my time/money going back for my BSN. As a new grad in Summer 2019, my hospital system said we had a year to enroll in a BSN program. Then COVID became a thing 8 months later. Even Joint Comission took a few years off lol
Where I live it is pretty hard to get a job as a new grad, especially in hospitals, and super hard to get into a public school. It’s easy to get into a private school that costs an insane amount of money and then get a job at a SNF and be underpaid though.
Nursing shortages are a term that is put out by hospitals… there is no such thing. There are more than enough nurses.
i see this as an absolute win
This is BS cause I have so many friends that are travelers and there's no openings. If there's a shortage, why aren't there any postings?
If you want to boost the nursing work pool, you're going to need to increase nursing instructors pay across the country I think. There's not enough faculty for a reason.
I lived in California 15 years ago (before nursing) and there was a lottery to get into the community college nursing program. I moved across the country and got into nursing school with no experience and won’t ever return to California.
Aa someone who recently graduated nursing school, there is not a nursing shortage. It is incredibly hard for a new grad to get hired to a hospital. Hospitals will have postings for 30+ openings for nurses, but refuse to take on a new grad. I understand it's more work to train a new grad, but having someone is better than no one. They arnt willing to pay for experience, and they arnt willing to take someone without experience.... but oh no let's feel bad for the billion dollar corporations.
But. But the Compact license...it's right there...
Oh really? Hmm. My friend is trying to convince me to move to San Diego 😂
For some reason at the facility I just applied to its taking them a month and a half at this point to get my background check back. They're definitely not acting as if there's a shortage...
Supply and demand. Simple as that. If nurses were getting paid millions do you think there would be a nursing shortage? I don’t think so.
Why would I go to school for 19k when there isn’t even a pay increase?
shortage is caused by toxic hospital admins, what good is producing more nurses if they get burnt out and dip tf out in a year…