Busy weekend - nursing shortage

Tue Jul 15 00:52:19 BST 2008

If you go to the Advance for Nurse Practitioners site, they do a yearly
salary survey that breaks down by geographic location, specialty, and
experience.

ACNPs make the most, FNPs the least, much as with medical specialties.

Jane

On 7/14/08 4:36 PM, "sharron" <floridarain_77 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Interesting subject matter...And interestingly enough I am trying to do a
> market assessment of NPs working in the areas of trauma and/or
> Neurosurgery...If you all would not mind I would love to hear what all the NPs
> out there are making an hour and what your specialty is...Thanks in advance
> Sharron
> 
> --- On Mon, 7/14/08, Jane Harper <janeharper at mac.com> wrote:
> 
> From: Jane Harper <janeharper at mac.com>
> Subject: Re: Busy weekend - nursing shortage
> To: "Trauma & Critical Care mailing list" <trauma-list at trauma.org>
> Date: Monday, July 14, 2008, 3:00 PM
> 
> Nursing wages have risen spectacularly more than inflation over the last 20
> years.  When I graduated from college in 1982, the most I could get in Ohio
> as a new graduate nurse was $7.25 an hour.  The pay progression is still
> pretty flat -- people get raises usually at 3 years, 5 years, 10 years and
> maybe 15 -- but the starting pay is amazing compared to what it was back
> then. Starting pay at my current hospital is about 3 times what I began
> with.  I know ICU staff RNs who work 12-hour shifts and routinely make over
> $100,000 a year without outrageous amounts of overtime, and agency nurses
> can easily make $40 an hour, with time and a half for the last 4 hours of a
> 12-hour shift.  That's work 12, get paid for 14 -- $560 a shift.
> 
> When I started as an advanced practice nurse, I got about $20 an hour, back
> in the mid 80s, and that was in northern California with a HUGE standard of
> living handicap.  Now, in the midwest about an hour outside Chicago, I'm
> making $47 an hour.
> 
> THAT is why nurses come here from overseas.
> 
> And the reason why we can't get more nurses domestically has to do with two
> things:  one, pay in academia SUCKS (I'd take a 50% pay cut to teach full
> time) and two, nursing is still a thankless job with infinite accountability
> and little authority.  Until the nature of hospital nursing changes -- since
> nearly everyone fresh out of college begins work in a hospital -- we're not
> going to get the best and the brightest.  And that would be true even if we
> HAD enough educators to get them all through college.  (Why don't we have
> enough?  See reason one above.  Do physicians in education get paid half of
> what their counterparts in practice make?)
> 
> Jane
> 
> 
> On 7/14/08 9:16 AM, "William Bromberg"
> <brombwi1 at memorialhealth.com> wrote:
> 
>> Tim,
> 
> Same here in Savannah, GA. Hospital is licensed for ~500 beds,
>> staffed
> for only ~400. We routinely close beds for staffing issues.
> 
> BTW ‹ as
>> far as I'm concerned this is a result of price controls on
> medical care. If
>> you can't raise the price of a widget to cover the
> variable cost of making one
>> more, you just won't make any more.
> Basically in any sane industry if demand
>> outstripped supply, prices
> would rise to allow wages to increase to attract
>> more workers, thereby
> increasing supply. In medicine we can't increase nursing
>> wages much so
> we raid emerging countries for nurses instead, worsening their
>> staffing
> shortages (NYC hospitals would cease to function overnight if not
>> for
> Phillipino (sp?) nurses ‹ best imperialism ever).
> 
> Bill
> 
>>>> Richard van
>> der Kleyn <vdkleyn at hotmail.com> 7/14/2008 6:40 AM >>>
> 
> Dear Tim,
>  
> A recent
>> survey here in Catalonia (north east spain) showed that we
> were short of
>> 15,000 nurses, Spain as a whole needs 3000 more ER docs.
> in our hospital in
>> the summer months we always have 1 ward closed (about
> 40 beds) due to a lack
>> of nurses...even though in the summer our
> catchment area populacion triples.
>> Its much the same all other europe, a
> lot of spanish nurses/doctors go to the
>> UK ( better pay), most of our
> new doctors come from south america (better
>> pay), a lot of african
> doctors now go to south america (better
>> pay)......finally the well paid
> western doctors go to africa as charitable
>> organisations because of the
> lack of doctors...it looks like money is the way
>> to atract personal.
>  
> Richard van der Kleyn
>  
>>> -----Original Message----->
>> From: Timothy Craig Hardcastle > Sent:
> 14 July 2008 07:40> To:
>> 'trauma-list at trauma.org'> Subject: Busy weekend
> - nursing shortage> > Hi all>
>>> We had a rather hectic weekend - but
> were even more curtailed by a> shortage
>> of nurses; had to close ICU beds
> and refuse some patients from> the EMS. Is
>> this just a South African
> problem or is this really an issue> in the USA,
>> Europe and UK as well?
> Do you have any ideas about how to> attract dedicated
>> trauma nurses to
> one's unit?> > Tim> Dr Timothy C Hardcastle> M.B., Ch.B.
>> (Stell); M. Med
> (Chir) (Stell); FCS (SA)> Principal Surgeon-Lecturer /
>> Sub-specialist:
> Trauma and Critical Care> Deputy director: Trauma Unit and
>> Trauma ICU>
> Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital / UKZN> 800 Bellair
>> Road>
> Mayville, Durban> > Postal: PostNet Suite 27> Private Bag X05>
>> Malvern,
> 4055> KwaZulu Natal> > timothyhar at ialch.co.za > > > -->
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-- 
Jane Harper, PhD(c), RN, APN
Trauma Nurse Practitioner, Rockford, IL