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Obviously not; nurses know it's not a 9-5 job but I don't think they (or anyone else) should have to string together 2-3 part-time/contract jobs without benefits just to pay rent.
DFW.
Curious what they're making in DFW and how much they're paying rent. I think general consensus is $20-$25 in the low end for new grads. Maybe they're unrealistic and expected to afford a luxury car and apartment first thing out of college?
$20-$25 is still much higher than Starbucks or McDonalds, and if you're open to traveling to higher paying states, sky's the limit. The job mobility of nurses is a plus too.
Obviously not; nurses know it's not a 9-5 job but I don't think they (or anyone else) should have to string together 2-3 part-time/contract jobs without benefits just to pay rent.
DFW.
Nurses are also hourly. They have the option of picking up additional shifts and really raking it in OT. IT workers like us don't get that.
Curious what they're making in DFW and how much they're paying rent. I think general consensus is $20-$25 in the low end for new grads. Maybe they're unrealistic and expected to afford a luxury car and apartment first thing out of college?
$20-$25 is still much higher than Starbucks or McDonalds, and if you're open to traveling to higher paying states, sky's the limit. The job mobility of nurses is a plus too.
I doubt it. The cost of living in Dallas-Fort Worth has gone up dramatically (particularly rent & house prices) in the last several years and pay hasn't kept up. If you're making $20/hr without health insurance and you're trying to afford a decent apartment in a safe part of town, you're going to struggle. If both DH and I were making only $20-$25 an hour, we'd be in serious trouble.
I've got a friend who's a nurse and who has spent time in the trenches as an educator and she says the job market is crazy...she's seen young nurses struggle to find enough shifts to cover rent & living expenses and if they have children, finding childcare to cover graveyard shifts can be extremely challenging. Another nurse friend says she wishes she'd never gotten into it but she's in her mid-40s now and doesn't see the point of changing fields. She drives all over the metroplex picking up shifts where she can find them.
Nursing is a noble career and I have great respect for it, but nursing isn't exactly a straight & narrow path to an easy middle-class life for a lot of people.
Nurses are also hourly. They have the option of picking up additional shifts and really raking it in OT. IT workers like us don't get that.
The problem is when nurses are forced/bullied to work OT against their will. It is a very real problem in the healthcare industry. And working OT isn't always as lucrative as you may think due to taxes.
Lastly, nurses get their shifts cancelled when the census is low.
Good topic. I have worked and volunteered in health care since I was a kid. Great people. I'll share my insight on nursing:
- There is no nursing shortage. There is some demand for bedside nurses with critical care experience who want to work night shift and weekends. Nursing salaries are actually going down in a lot of places.
- Hospitals usually won't hire you without a BSN. However, they can and do hire foreign nurses and pay them far less.
- You will need a DNP these days to be a nurse practitioner, plus nursing experience. I know several NPs who work as nurses because, as I stated above, most of the demand is for bedside nursing in critical care or high skill units.
- Those 12 hour shifts come on holidays, weekends, and nights.
- Nursing is physically and emotionally taxing
- I know nurses who have worked 12-16 hours straight without even a 15 minute breaks. And that's not overtime.
- You probably won't find a non-bedside job out of school, most nurses who work for insurance companies and other office jobs have 10 plus years of experience.
- Patients will bite you, kick you, spit on you, vomit on you, verbally abuse you, and you have to be nice to them.
- You'll get blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong with a patient's care
- If you suck as a nurse, the other nurses will eat you alive and you won't make it off orientation
Other alternatives are PA school (as mentioned), Physical Therapy (good field), Respiratory therapy, and radiology.
The shortage isn't what they say it is. Take a look at the nursing forums where plenty of people have difficulty getting a job. My sister graduated with her BSN and ended up taking a crappy job at a nursing home after months of applying and getting no where.
My field (health care) cries a shortage as well but there are not that many openings. But I guess they figure if they say it enough, people will start to believe it.
I'd be surprised if there was a shortage as it seems that so many people go into nursing when they want to change careers. Then again, I've seen several career students who were going into nursing so who knows.
No one really shuts up about getting into the nursing programaround here. I'm consistently badgered to get into it by students I see around that are still waiting to get in. But maybe because I gripe about the ills of my line of work.
Whatever the case may be, I don't think any of them have researched the career enough times to pick up the negatives that will come their way. But as far as the earlier postings about job related health woes like diabetes and such, I haven't heard about it being a career ender in the nursing field.
There's no nursing shortage, nursing saturation in many areas. Maybe a shortage in small cities or rural areas. Nurses have a hard time getting jobs in many areas unless they are willing to work nights, rotating shifts, etc. Some have go into LTC initially.
no nursing shortage in major metro areas and its surrounding suburbs. i can see there being shortages in rural out of the way places.
Comfy nursing jobs are the office admin 9-5 positions where you dont need to be doing patient care. You need years of bedside experience before you can land one.
Good topic. I have worked and volunteered in health care since I was a kid. Great people. I'll share my insight on nursing:
- There is no nursing shortage. There is some demand for bedside nurses with critical care experience who want to work night shift and weekends. Nursing salaries are actually going down in a lot of places.
- Hospitals usually won't hire you without a BSN. However, they can and do hire foreign nurses and pay them far less.
- You will need a DNP these days to be a nurse practitioner, plus nursing experience. I know several NPs who work as nurses because, as I stated above, most of the demand is for bedside nursing in critical care or high skill units.
- Those 12 hour shifts come on holidays, weekends, and nights.
- Nursing is physically and emotionally taxing
- I know nurses who have worked 12-16 hours straight without even a 15 minute breaks. And that's not overtime.
- You probably won't find a non-bedside job out of school, most nurses who work for insurance companies and other office jobs have 10 plus years of experience.
- Patients will bite you, kick you, spit on you, vomit on you, verbally abuse you, and you have to be nice to them.
- You'll get blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong with a patient's care
- If you suck as a nurse, the other nurses will eat you alive and you won't make it off orientation
Other alternatives are PA school (as mentioned), Physical Therapy (good field), Respiratory therapy, and radiology.
I just want to add, there are exceptions to some of these. My niece got a job at a very big hospital system with an RN from a community college. She worked the floor for about a year, now works as a trainer for new docs and nurses on the computerized documentation system. They are currently paying for her to get her BSN.
I think there are shortages, but they are select pockets of the country. I think if you will work in rural North Dakota or Alaska, you can pretty much name your price. But outside of those areas not so much.
I would also add Speech therapy to the list of alternatives. I'm an OT (work in nursing homes), but at 56 I wonder how much longer I can do it. If I could go back, I'd consider speech instead as it is much easier on the body. I would actually wait a bit right now though, as Medicare is supposed to have major changes coming this year that is going to impact therapy negatively.
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