Posted on 01/09/2009 5:23:45 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
MILWAUKEE Please, please accept a high-paying job with us. In fact, just swing by for an interview and we'll give you a chance to win cash and prizes.
Sounds too good to be true, especially in an economy riddled with job cuts in nearly every industry. But applicants for nursing jobs are still so scarce that recruiters have been forced to get increasingly inventive.
One Michigan company literally rolled out a red carpet at a recent hiring event. Residential Home Health, which provides in-home nursing for seniors on Medicare, lavished registered nurses and other health care workers with free champagne and a trivia contest hosted by game-show veteran Chuck Woolery. Prizes included a one-year lease for a 2009 SUV, hotel stays and dinners.
"We're committed to finding ways to creatively engage with passive job seekers," said David Curtis, president of the Madison Heights-based company.
Recruiters like Curtis may have little choice. The long-standing U.S. nurse shortage has led to chronic understaffing that can threaten patient care and nurses' job satisfaction, and the problem is expected to worsen.
The shortage has been operating since World War II on an eight- to 10-year cycle, industry experts say. Each time the number of nurses reaches a critical low, the government adds funding and hospitals upgrade working conditions. But as the deficit eases, those retention efforts fade and eventually the old conditions return, often driving nurses into other professions.
"We recently had a hiring event where, for experienced nurses to interview just to interview we gave them $50 gas cards," said Tom Zinda, the director of recruitment at Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare in the Milwaukee-area city of Glendale. "We really try to get as creative as we can.
(Excerpt) Read more at denverpost.com ...
My daughter is currently in Nursing School - already has one degree, this will be #2 and will pay the bills...
The problem with going into medicine is that they won’t let you in. They think that the more doctors and nurses they have, the more healthcare costs.
MI reference ping — your call
Nursing is a very durable career
Wherever you go, you will always have a job
unless you have gotten severely screwed up...
Must be highly tolerant of bodily fluids however
Tough job dealing with pain, suffering, and death all day. But it’s one of the few in demand.
I held one job that paid minimum wage!
If you read the article carefully it says that they treat nurses well until the critical shortage is alleviated. Then they treat them poorly and nurses leave the field in DROVES. Then it starts all over again.
Nurses are factory-workers. Like police.
Become a nurse if you want to be a factory worker.
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You don’t seem to know anything about nursing.
I know tons about nursing.
I’m sure that if an employer wanted nurses and was willing to pay them $10-20 an hour more than they would earn elsewhere for comparable work, they would have little problem filling their vacancies. This is a shortage of nurses willing to take what employers currently want to pay.
I seriously doubt it. Your comments speak volumes about how little you know about the profession.
There are many problems within the profession, mostly the range of educational levels that are allowed to call themselves nurses and the lack of increase in salary to correspond to experience. The more education you attain, the farther from the bedside you end up, to be compensated adequately. Many nurses enter the field to be in direct contact with people and see the difference they can make. Without that type of gratification, it can turn into a regular office job, which doesn’t require clinical skills, so why bother going to nursing school? It’s easier to go get an MBA.
You are talking out your hat.
If you dont like what I say, rebut it.
But stop making thin air pronouncements you cant back up.
I don’t need to rebut a thing. You are proving my point. Have a nice night.
“If you read the article carefully it says that they treat nurses well until the critical shortage is alleviated. Then they treat them poorly and nurses leave the field in DROVES.”
Where did it say this? I read the article and didn’t see these claims.
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