Here is the moment you’ve all been waiting for–find out if nursing is really for you. You can take this idiotic quiz, and then discover that no matter what answer you give, they will find a way of twisting it into a nursing-is-the-right-career-for-you. The website is really just a ploy to get your email address so that they can email you spam about signing up in one of their online college programs, but it really is amusing how they manage to put a nursing twist on every answer.

I took this silly quiz, just to see how the answers would come out, and answered the questions int he most “nurse negative way” possible. But wouldn’t you know, they have a positive spin on everything. For example, the question, “The sight of blood makes me…”

I answered choice d. It makes me panic.

Now, how can you be a nurse if blood makes you panic. Well, here is their cheerleading response.

“Sometimes we think it’s the sight of blood that upsets us, when in reality for many of us it’s the idea of pain and suffering that we have such a hard time dealing with. If you receive education and training on how to alleviate pain and suffering in patients, you may find you are gifted in this area. For those who really are terrified at the sight of blood, there are plenty of nursing jobs where day-to-day contact with blood is not expected.”

Is this enough to make you queasy or what? They don’t say how someone who is terrified at the sight of blood can get through a nursing program, even if working with blood is not going to be in their future. But aside from the impossibility of avoiding the sight of blood during nursing school, the only way that a new grad is going to get a blood free job is to:

a) stay in school, don’t get a job, and get a degree in management–and then hide in an office in an insurance company where you will never have patient contact. Although, most companies do not want case workers with no experience.

b) work in a “low blood” situation like a psych unit, but even that’s not a guarantee of no blood.

There really isn’t much else around that is going to keep you free from the sight of blood–not until you get some experience at least. But these rah-rah ads never let on what nursing is really about. And this quiz, like most other pseudo advertising websites, tries to convince you that no matter what you’re answer (ie, you can’t deal with stress) that nursing is the career for you.

I remember this website from some California based organization that was telling readers that you didn’t have to have be good at math to be a nurse (never mind drug calculations!), or even be intelligent. It also pointed out how you could be a nurse without doing patient care, and then went on to list all of the different “jobs” that a nurse could have; lawyer, hospital administrator, pharmaceutical rep, etc. I wrote them and said that if someone wanted to be a lawyer, why on earth would they become a nurse first? Why not just go to law school? Duh, like being a nurse is a prerequisite for law. Ditto for a hospital admin–just get an MBA and save yourself the agony of nursing school. And if you want to be a pharm rep, you can do that any number of ways, one by becoming a pharmacist–which pays a lot better and has a lot less stress.

Just in case you want to take the quiz, to see if a nursing career is in your stars….

The other day I mentioned a story about a mountain climber who wants to not only scale Mt. Everest for the glory of nursing, but also to follow in the ill-fated footsteps of George Leigh Mallory–who was killed while either trying to reach the summit of Everest or descend from it, in 1924.

I found Mallory’s footsteps to be an odd choice to follow, being that his story had a rather miserable ending. Why not choose the footsteps of one who both climbed to the top and got down in one piece–still breathing?

Anyway, for those of you who have never heard of George Mallory, and are curious about him, I’ve attached a link to the Wikipedia. His story is rather fascinating, considering the lack of fancy equipment and clothing that climbers have the pleasure of indulging in now. That he even made it as far as he did, and possibly reached the summit, was quite an amazing feat.

It seems that George Bush has suddenly realized that the Gulf Coast is still not spiffy and clean. Only 18 months after Katrina and–ohmygod–people are still living in tent cities and FEMA trailers (if they haven’t been thrown out of them), and conditions did not miraculously return to normal. And he seems shocked. Bush has declared that he will do something about it. Gee, that’s so nice of you Mr. President. Wasn’t Brownie doing one “heckofva job?”

I suppose waking up after 18 months is better than not waking up at all, and Bush should have been down there three months after the commotion died down, stomping his feet and demanding action. If you’ve got 100s of billions to give to Halliburton–oops, I mean the effort for Iraq–surely a few nickels can find their way to them po’ folk down in the deep south.

Anyway, in the wake of Bush’s sudden realization that people are still homeless and covered with mold and slime, this press release came out about the dire shortage of nurses in New Orleans and environs.

From PR Web:

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 2, 2007 — As President Bush visited the Gulf Coast yesterday for the first time in six months, the National League for Nursing asks that he pay attention to the reality of the dire lack of nurses in hospitals and communities in the area.

This shortage of nurses is creating health disparities, inflated costs, and poor quality of health care. The lingering situation in New Orleans is unacceptable for anyone in America seeking access to health care.
In a letter to the president, NLN CEO Dr. Beverly Malone said, “This shortage of nurses is creating health disparities, inflated costs, and poor quality of health care. The lingering situation in New Orleans is unacceptable for anyone in America seeking access to health care.”

Though the White House says that President Bush has helped make the $110 billion in aid that Congress approved available for rebuilding, education, and rental assistance and that his Cabinet secretaries have visited the region dozens of times, the NLN points out that critical attention has not been paid to the ongoing problem of nurse shortages.

“Adequate health care is not possible in the absence of nurses and there can be no real recovery without it,” said NLN president Dr. Toni Bargagliotti. “We look forward to President Bush taking this opportunity to address this urgent issue.”

I would agree that the shortage of nurses probably has a real effect on healthcare down there, but in reality, what is Bush supposed to do about it? The nursing shortage in the Gulf is the same as the nursing shortage elsewhere, and stems from the same basic problems with a few extras thrown in.

Let me count the ways for you, Dr. Toni, and explain why nurses aren’t flocking to the region, except as temporary volunteers.

1) The pay sucks
2) The pay sucks. It is worth repeating. Nurses salaries in the south are among the worst in the nation.
3) Many nurses left the area and are happier living in other parts of the country. Better pay, perhaps better working conditions, and a lesser threat of another hurricane.
4) Let’s discuss working conditions for a moment–the south has about the lowest number of nurses who are unionized. Does that speak for itself?
5) Due to Katrina, there is a lack of housing. Nurses need a place to live. Unlike the fantasy model, real life angels of mercy require food, clothing and shelter.
6) The place is still a mess and nurses, like other mortals, are weary of it. They have signed on with travel agencies and are making good money, have a place to live, and will wait it out elsewhere. Translation: they do not want to be martyrs.

The only way that I can see Bush helping this situation in the immediate future is to allocate some of that money to paying for nurses to come to the region on a temporary basis. Offer travel nurses higher salaries than they might get in California, pay for decent housing (emphasis on the word decent–nurses aren’t going to stay in a rental covered in cockroaches and that has mushrooms growing out of the carpet), offer them fat bonuses for extending their contracts, and you may get people to come.

And once the nurses are there, you have to make sure that they are treated with respect, are given decent assignments, and so on.

That will take care of the problem for the immediate future. But if you want to repopulate the area, then hospitals are going to have to do the same as hospitals all over the nation–pay better, stop harrassing nurses, provide decent working conditions, treat them with respect, give them decent benefits–same old story, you know?

So instead of screaming and yelping about the lack of adequate health care and the need for nurses in the Gulf, perhaps Dr. Toni may present the Bush administration with some concrete suggestions that can be implemented immediately. Like I suggested. The nursing shortage down there isn’t going to solved overnight, and you’ve got to use your brain to figure out some real solutions that will work, instead of whining and farting up the same tired rhetoric. I know there is a lot to blame on Bush, but I think it is a little beyond his capacity to round up nurses and herd them down to the Gulf coast.

People like Dr. Toni love to address the problems, but never offer a real solution. Maybe some of that $110 billion can be used for nursing scholarships? That’s the popular battlecry. That will surely be a great solution. Or maybe it can be used to recruit minority high school students into nursing. That’s another “solution” to the nursing shortage.

Why can’t these so called nursing leaders ever just say something that makes sense, and say it point blank. Like, “Uh, Mr. President, can we have some of that $100 billion to help recruit temporary nurses to the Gulf? There are a lot of issues to be addressed with this, but right now the region needs nurses and needs them now.”

Is that so difficult a task?

I suppose it’s the thought that counts. I mean, not every nurse is willing to climb Mt. Everest to bring attention to the nursing shortage. But then, why should they, when there are easier, better, and far more effective ways of both bringing attention to the problem and the solution. But this particular nurse thinks that climbing a mountain (which he undoubtedly wants to do anyway) and collecting money for his efforts, is somehow going to make an impact on the nursing profession.

Sorry Charlie, but no dice.

From South Carolina’s http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/living/health/16699081.htmState.com

Patrick Hickey is set to follow in the boot steps of Mount Everest pioneer George Leigh Mallory. But unlike Mallory, he isn’t climbing the mountain “because it’s there.” He’s doing it to let people know about the nation’s nursing shortage and to raise money to train new nurses.

Hickey aims to raise $29,035 — a dollar for each foot of altitude of Mount Everest. The money will go to the Summit Scholarship, for students who want to enter USC’s College of Nursing.

“I hope this scholarship will encourage them to join the nursing program,” said Hickey, an assistant professor at the school.

Isn’t that noble of him? There’s nothing wrong with funding a scholarship, but the current nursing shortage has nothing at all to do with scholarships. If he wants to do something for nursing, then why not use the money to lobby the state government for real changes–like banning mandatory overtime? Passing a minimum nurse/patient ratio? Or donate the money to the state nurses’ association to be used for unionizing efforts.

But that would be too controversial. Like many academians, Patrick seems to have his head in the sand.

Each year, colleges around the country turn away many qualified applicants because of money and teaching staff shortages. So as veteran nurses retire, there are few new nurses to take their place. At the same time, the need for nursing care continues to grow as the population ages.

The usual perfunctory quotes about nursing. Isn’t it amazing how nearly all newspaper articles say the identical thing, and dance around the real issues? From reading this, you’d think that the nursing shortage were merely a problem of schools being unable to educate the vast numbers of people who want to be nurses, and that the only reason nurses leave their jobs is because of retirement. Never mind the high attrition rate from nursing schools, or from the profession for reasons other than retirement.

The article goes on to say that Patrick will be talking with high school students about his career choice, and that he’s already tried to indoctrinate boy scouts.

“I hope more guys will see what I’m doing and what a great career nursing is,” he said.

Now if I was one of those students, sitting in a classroom and being for forced to listen to this, I would be wondering why Patrick was here in the first place. If nursing is such a great career, then why is there such a shortage? Why the need for bells, whistles, climbing Mt. Everest, idiotic television commercials, and even more idiotic websites like Discovernursing.com? Why have there been chronic nursing shortages for the past 50 years? If nursing is so wonderful, then how on earth could a shortage ever happened? We don’t hear about lawyer shortages, or shortages of fashion models or actors, or even shortages of accountants.

Oh, and by the way Patrick, Mallory died on Mt. Everest. I don’t think you want to follow too closely in his footsteps.