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It's a symptom of our time that everything gets reduced to an economic calculus. The concepts of sacrifice, passion, or duty seem like a distant memory. Edit:

It's a symptom of our time that everything gets reduced to an economic calculus. The concepts of sacrifice, passion, or duty seem like a distant memory. Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying it's doctors and nurses thinking this way. But a lot of posters on HN certainly are.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
It’s just reality. If you want more people to sign up to change bedpans during a pandemic, then pay up. The cause of stress among healthcare providers is economic, and so is the solution. I would never advise my kids to go into a job where a part of your pay is being called a hero. That’s how you get taken advantage of. This is not wartime. This is a result of MBAs in management running the organization so lean that there is no slack in the system. So you can go ahead and offer your passion, duty, and sacrifice, but someone above you is just going to see it as another place they can save money.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  The labor force isn't a frictionless system. If we decided to double nurse's pay worldwide right now, how long do you think it would take until we have more nurses?
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I’m sure it takes years for a nurse to learn the ins and outs of the job, but my point is if they were paid well historically, then more people would have become nurses. And perhaps less trained people like CNA’s can be trained in a few months to start assisting nurses? But it has to begin with incentivizing them with proper pay. Relying on people’s charity to do their duty in lieu of competitive pay is not a good strategy.
    - lordnacho 6y ago
      Also nurses would come out of retirement or stay working longer. And people would be less likely to quit a nursing degree.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > If you want more people to sign up to change bedpans during a pandemic Pretty fucking dismissive of the skilled work that nurses do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J60LFG8ejVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J60LFG8ejVs
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    That statement is not intended to be dismissive of any skilled work. It’s intended to illustrate that nursing involves a lot of undesireable work (not mutually exclusive with skilled work), and changing bed pans is a quick and easy way to illustrate the undesireable work. And if society wants people to do work that pretty much everyone doesn’t want to, then they need to offer sufficient pay.
- jonsno56 6y ago
  You probably think Covid is just the flu

lotsofpulp 6y ago

It’s just reality. If you want more people to sign up to change bedpans during a pandemic, then pay up. The cause of stress among healthcare providers is economic, and so is the solution. I would never advise my kids to go into a job where a part of your pay is being called a hero. That’s how you get taken advantage of. This is not wartime. This is a result of MBAs in management running the organization so lean that there is no slack in the system. So you can go ahead and offer your passion, duty, and sacrifice, but someone above you is just going to see it as another place they can save money.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
The labor force isn't a frictionless system. If we decided to double nurse's pay worldwide right now, how long do you think it would take until we have more nurses?
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I’m sure it takes years for a nurse to learn the ins and outs of the job, but my point is if they were paid well historically, then more people would have become nurses. And perhaps less trained people like CNA’s can be trained in a few months to start assisting nurses? But it has to begin with incentivizing them with proper pay. Relying on people’s charity to do their duty in lieu of competitive pay is not a good strategy.
  - lordnacho 6y ago
    Also nurses would come out of retirement or stay working longer. And people would be less likely to quit a nursing degree.
DanBC 6y ago
> If you want more people to sign up to change bedpans during a pandemic Pretty fucking dismissive of the skilled work that nurses do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J60LFG8ejVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J60LFG8ejVs
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  That statement is not intended to be dismissive of any skilled work. It’s intended to illustrate that nursing involves a lot of undesireable work (not mutually exclusive with skilled work), and changing bed pans is a quick and easy way to illustrate the undesireable work. And if society wants people to do work that pretty much everyone doesn’t want to, then they need to offer sufficient pay.
jonsno56 6y ago
You probably think Covid is just the flu