Mary - Now I Help Nurses

Mary -







I’m a nurse recruiter. Over the years, I’ve observed the cyclical demand for nurses. When I graduated with a BSN in 1971, there were no job openings for RNs and it took me awhile to find a job. The same is true right now. New graduates are having difficulty finding jobs here in Washington. Back in 2001 nursing jobs were plentiful, but now, the opposite is true. I often get calls from experienced nurses saying their spouse is being transferred to Seattle and they are looking for a job. So, right now we’ve got incoming experienced nurses and turnover is low.

Just this past May, a major nurse recruiting organization in the state said there weren’t jobs available for 2006 graduates. There are openings in California, Arizona and Nevada, but significantly fewer in the Pacific Northwest at this time. Hype? Sure, media says there is a nurse shortage, but I don’t find that to be true in Washington. Here, we have a need for intensive care unit and operating room nurses. But students don’t fall out of nursing school with those skills.

The nurse shortage will really occur when my generation retires, which will likely begin in the next five years.“You need to have a passion … to help people cope with what’s going on in their lives. It will be so satisfying if you can help a patient relieve discomfort because you remember to raise the head of their bed. You’ll feel like a genius.” I worry about it because there aren’t enough spaces in the schools of nursing; we don’t have enough faculty to meet the demand. The teacher/student ratio in nursing school is one clinical faculty for every ten students. It’s a very expensive program compared to say a history class which can have a ratio of 500 students per one professor. Universities can’t pay nursing faculty more than they pay the history professors, and nurses don’t want to go into teaching because they would take a significant cut in pay and leave long tenured jobs.

Before people think about going to nursing school, they should research the education required for their selected area of specialization. I focus recruitment towards nurses who have a BSN or higher. My hospital seeks new graduates from educational programs that provide very specific student clinical experiences.

Graduates are shocked to learn we won’t hire from just any school. Entry requirements for nursing programs are difficult and students are just glad to be accepted. They don’t realize they may need specialized training to be prepared to work in some areas. Maybe they wanted to work in a specialty and learn at the end of their schooling that the specialty is not thoroughly covered in the curriculum. It would help if potential nursing students analyze what they want to do and made sure their educational goals match the hiring expectations of the hospitals in which they want to work.

The nursing profession needs to agree on the entry level education needed. These days you can get your master’s degree in nursing and never be a nurse a day in your life because people are recreating their careers after they’ve attained a baccalaureate degree in a different field altogether! Several colleges offer this option. A person can have a bachelor’s degree in, for example, English, and take a two year program to get a master’s in nursing. Graduates of these programs are sometimes surprised when they can’t get hired. They’ve been sold a bill of goods by the school and don’t understand why they have to go through the bachelor’s program in nursing when they already have a bachelor’s degree. But really, it’s like saying, “Why should I get a bachelor’s degree in engineering? I’ll just get my master’s and build a Space Needle.

I went into nursing because I wanted to be a pediatrician. It only took one quarter of school for me to realize I was not willing to work that hard to become a doctor. When I realized the nurse is the person who spends the time with the patient, not the doctor, I was glad I made the decision to pursue nursing. The one regret I have is not getting my BSN. My career would have been different if I had. I like what I’m doing, but I would be somewhere else if I had more education.

I don’t work with patients now that I’m in recruiting. I’m often asked if I miss the patients, and I say “no.” I’ve really traded nurses for patients. The nurses need me too. They need me to help them find the right job. During the layoffs in the 1990s, displaced nurses needed a shoulder and I could let them lean on me. I still work with people a lot and provide a needed service. It gives me a sense of being helpful, and that’s what nursing is all about.

I like to be positive and give hope to nursing students. Sometimes they’ll say, “I’m never going to get through chemistry.” And I will tell them, “You know, every nurse I’ve ever talked to said that. It’s the hardest course ever and you wonder why you have to do it. Just get it over with and then you get on to the stuff you went into nursing for.”

I also tell nurses, “Yes, I found my first year as a nurse difficult. I thought I was smart when I graduated and after five minutes on the job I realized I had a lot to learn.” It’s important they know that they are not the only nurse having those feelings. We offer a new graduate support group here. It’s very helpful. We tell the new nurses, “Follow the advice you give your patients. Take care of yourself.”

For people thinking about nursing, I say, “If you’re going into nursing because you hear there’s a shortage and it pays well, please know that’s not enough of a reason. You need to have a passion; not to cure disease, but more to help people cope with what’s going on in their lives. It will be so satisfying if you can help a patient relieve discomfort because you remember to raise the head of their bed. You’ll feel like a genius.”

Power Strategies: Compassion, Affiliation, Connection
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