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I'm friends with quite a few nurses, primarily travel nurses, and not a single one is considering a change in career that I am aware of. Simply an anecdotal cou

I'm friends with quite a few nurses, primarily travel nurses, and not a single one is considering a change in career that I am aware of. Simply an anecdotal counterpoint and nothing more.

pc86 4y ago
Travel nurses are compensated quite a bit more in my understanding. And the travel aspect means they can leave the more toxic locations more easily.
- phkahler 4y ago
  They're paid a shit ton more. And because of that, more nurses are quitting to do the travel thing, which worsens the shortage and increases demand for travel nurses ;-) never seen an industry fuck itself over so bad. That's really the issue - healthcare has become an industry, not a profession.
  - joshgel 4y ago
    It's really amazing to see travel nurses come back to work at a place they just left. They are now doing the same job as before, are getting paid almost twice as much with better schedules and are working next to people that they know and are friends with. It's honestly surprising that more haven't taken the jump and is really shocking that hospitals aren't doing more to retain critical staff.
    - TecoAndJix 4y ago
      The hospitals have been asking Biden to put a stop to it: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/02/1077710203/hospitals-ask-biden-administration-to-help-lower-the-soaring-cost-of-travel-nurs https://www.npr.org/2022/02/02/1077710203/hospitals-ask-bide...
      - pc86 4y ago
        It sounds nurses just need to be paid more, or travel nurses need to be paid less. Equilibrium is probably somewhere between the two extremes. Apropos of nothing but why is the knee jerk reaction "we need executive action to fix this staffing problem?"
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Why would travel nurses need to be paid less?
        pc86 4y ago
        If wages equalized, it's unlikely they would all equalize to the top of the range. It's more likely to be somewhere in the top quartile or quintile.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Why would they equalize? I assume there is a premium required for not going back to one’s own home everyday.
      - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
        I can only react with this face: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/112/480/OpoQQ.jpg https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/112/480/Opo... Help me understand this. Make it make sense... 1. Hospitals pay their nurses $X, which is way too low 2. Nurses quit because they're underpaid and overworked 3. Hospitals have a nurse staffing crisis and so pay travel nurses 2 * $X (or more!) 4. Hospitals are in a panic over the cost of travel nurses, yet instead of paying their nurses more to keep them around and eliminate the need for travel nurses, they ask the government to cap the cost of travel nurses My mind is exploding over the ridiculousness of it.
    - zaptheimpaler 4y ago
      Its hilarious that nursing shares this problem with the tech industry and probably with most other industries. Every company is extremely allergic to giving raises and is happy to let their workforce churn constantly. You would think they believe that experience has no value. But on the hiring side, experience is one of the most widely accepted signals of value.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    As you noted at the beginning of your comment, the issue is the pay to quality of life at work ratio being too low.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      AT some point you hit diminishing returns on the pay/QAL ratio. IF the tradeoff is bad at 200k/yr, it wont be better at 225k/yr or 250k/yr
      - t-3 4y ago
        Sure, but nurses are more like 30-40k/yr. Plenty of room for improvement.
        dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Sure, but nurses are more like 30-40k/yr. Plenty of room for improvement. “Nurses” can be used to mean many things (CNAs, LVNs/LPNs, RNs) but this is specifically RNs, who, make much more than that, generally (median $77.6k/yr) https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/mobile/registered-nurses.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/mobile/registered-nurses....
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > median $77.6k/yr Given the amount of school a nurse must have, that’s low.
        ejb999 4y ago
        2 years of school to be an RN, 4 for BSN - it's not a lot of school, it's an average amount of school at most.
        ejb999 4y ago
        >>Sure, but nurses are more like 30-40k/yr. Not even close if you are talking about the USA (and actual nurses, not CNA's or MAs) - starting pay for 2 year RN degrees near me are about 55-65K, and you easily go over 100K in a few years.
  - BobbyJo 4y ago
    The market... finds a way.
    - bumby 4y ago
      While technically true, what we're trying to avoid is forcing the market to find a way that may include an interim period of extremely bad outcomes before correcting itself
- ProAm 4y ago
  A travel nurse means you just have to work across town you dont have to travel out of state, out of country, or to middle of nowhere. And these people are bringing in 5k a week currently. None of them are leaving.
drnonsense42 4y ago
The other responder said the same thing, but to add, a traveling nurse I’m friends with , in Texas, gets paid 5k a week if he chooses to work and chooses where he wants to work. So again, this is like making a judgment about software development working conditions by using people rest and vesting at FAANG as an example.
rdtwo 4y ago
A lot of nurses are becoming travel nurses because they will get paid market rate
mfer 4y ago
The travel nurse market is growing due to supply and demand problems. The demand for nurses is increasing as people are leaving and there are more from the boomer generation hitting an age where they need more care. The supply has stayed the same. Schools local to me have not increased output for various reasons (lack of instructors, lack of space in local hospitals where nurses train, etc). The supply is too low. So, we have a supply and demand problem. Travel nurses get paid a lot more because of this. The solution is to produce more nurses. Something few are talking about. One of the local schools, to me, turned away half of applicants because the program isn't increasing capacity.
- jwagenet 4y ago
  No, the solution is to pay nurses better. There are already tons of high quality nurses who don’t want to do it anymore because of poor pay in the face of demanding hospitals and patients.
  - llbeansandrice 4y ago
    pay, benefits, and hours I suppose you could just pay people more money to make it worth it but the long hours take a toll in other ways as well and contribute to burnout no matter how much you get paid.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    Poor pay? Judging by the nurses I have talked too in big proper hospitals stress and scheduling are their main concerns, not pay. Obviously higher pay would increase their abuse tolerance, but I think it is only part of the problem and a short term solution since no amount of pay will offset stress problems. County level nurses seem to have much better work conditions than hospital nurses.
    - sixothree 4y ago
      Nurses in outpatient offices haven't seen many of the pay perks related to covid that hospital staff get, even though they are still facing risk.
muh_gradle 4y ago
I can add another data point. One of my mother's friends works as a travel nurse. I don't envy her lifestyle, but she seems to find that the compensation makes it worth her time.
tubalcain 4y ago
Travel nurses make six figures and get to sample choice cuts from the local Tinder menu every time they take on a new job.
Eric_WVGG 4y ago
Funny you should mention that… reading all of this, I was thinking of a podcast interview with a nurse who was retiring from hospital work. His primary reason for leaving was being tired of fighting with hospital ownership and administration, and was planning on switching to travel nursing which appears to be more of a "gig" space. He did consider that a career change, I think in the same sort of way that a computer programmer like (presumably) most of us would consider quitting Google to work on an indie app or videogame development would be a career change. The larger point is, medical professionals are bailing from the hospital system, which looks pretty busted.

I'm friends with quite a few nurses, primarily travel nurses, and not a single one is considering a change in career that I am aware of. Simply an anecdotal counterpoint and nothing more.

pc86 4y ago

Travel nurses are compensated quite a bit more in my understanding. And the travel aspect means they can leave the more toxic locations more easily.

phkahler 4y ago
They're paid a shit ton more. And because of that, more nurses are quitting to do the travel thing, which worsens the shortage and increases demand for travel nurses ;-) never seen an industry fuck itself over so bad. That's really the issue - healthcare has become an industry, not a profession.
- joshgel 4y ago
  It's really amazing to see travel nurses come back to work at a place they just left. They are now doing the same job as before, are getting paid almost twice as much with better schedules and are working next to people that they know and are friends with. It's honestly surprising that more haven't taken the jump and is really shocking that hospitals aren't doing more to retain critical staff.
  - TecoAndJix 4y ago
    The hospitals have been asking Biden to put a stop to it: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/02/1077710203/hospitals-ask-biden-administration-to-help-lower-the-soaring-cost-of-travel-nurs https://www.npr.org/2022/02/02/1077710203/hospitals-ask-bide...
    - pc86 4y ago
      It sounds nurses just need to be paid more, or travel nurses need to be paid less. Equilibrium is probably somewhere between the two extremes. Apropos of nothing but why is the knee jerk reaction "we need executive action to fix this staffing problem?"
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Why would travel nurses need to be paid less?
        pc86 4y ago
        If wages equalized, it's unlikely they would all equalize to the top of the range. It's more likely to be somewhere in the top quartile or quintile.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Why would they equalize? I assume there is a premium required for not going back to one’s own home everyday.
    - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
      I can only react with this face: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/112/480/OpoQQ.jpg https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/112/480/Opo... Help me understand this. Make it make sense... 1. Hospitals pay their nurses $X, which is way too low 2. Nurses quit because they're underpaid and overworked 3. Hospitals have a nurse staffing crisis and so pay travel nurses 2 * $X (or more!) 4. Hospitals are in a panic over the cost of travel nurses, yet instead of paying their nurses more to keep them around and eliminate the need for travel nurses, they ask the government to cap the cost of travel nurses My mind is exploding over the ridiculousness of it.
  - zaptheimpaler 4y ago
    Its hilarious that nursing shares this problem with the tech industry and probably with most other industries. Every company is extremely allergic to giving raises and is happy to let their workforce churn constantly. You would think they believe that experience has no value. But on the hiring side, experience is one of the most widely accepted signals of value.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  As you noted at the beginning of your comment, the issue is the pay to quality of life at work ratio being too low.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    AT some point you hit diminishing returns on the pay/QAL ratio. IF the tradeoff is bad at 200k/yr, it wont be better at 225k/yr or 250k/yr
    - t-3 4y ago
      Sure, but nurses are more like 30-40k/yr. Plenty of room for improvement.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Sure, but nurses are more like 30-40k/yr. Plenty of room for improvement. “Nurses” can be used to mean many things (CNAs, LVNs/LPNs, RNs) but this is specifically RNs, who, make much more than that, generally (median $77.6k/yr) https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/mobile/registered-nurses.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/mobile/registered-nurses....
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > median $77.6k/yr Given the amount of school a nurse must have, that’s low.
        ejb999 4y ago
        2 years of school to be an RN, 4 for BSN - it's not a lot of school, it's an average amount of school at most.
      - ejb999 4y ago
        >>Sure, but nurses are more like 30-40k/yr. Not even close if you are talking about the USA (and actual nurses, not CNA's or MAs) - starting pay for 2 year RN degrees near me are about 55-65K, and you easily go over 100K in a few years.
- BobbyJo 4y ago
  The market... finds a way.
  - bumby 4y ago
    While technically true, what we're trying to avoid is forcing the market to find a way that may include an interim period of extremely bad outcomes before correcting itself
ProAm 4y ago
A travel nurse means you just have to work across town you dont have to travel out of state, out of country, or to middle of nowhere. And these people are bringing in 5k a week currently. None of them are leaving.

drnonsense42 4y ago

The other responder said the same thing, but to add, a traveling nurse I’m friends with , in Texas, gets paid 5k a week if he chooses to work and chooses where he wants to work. So again, this is like making a judgment about software development working conditions by using people rest and vesting at FAANG as an example.

rdtwo 4y ago

A lot of nurses are becoming travel nurses because they will get paid market rate

mfer 4y ago

The travel nurse market is growing due to supply and demand problems. The demand for nurses is increasing as people are leaving and there are more from the boomer generation hitting an age where they need more care. The supply has stayed the same. Schools local to me have not increased output for various reasons (lack of instructors, lack of space in local hospitals where nurses train, etc). The supply is too low. So, we have a supply and demand problem. Travel nurses get paid a lot more because of this. The solution is to produce more nurses. Something few are talking about. One of the local schools, to me, turned away half of applicants because the program isn't increasing capacity.

jwagenet 4y ago
No, the solution is to pay nurses better. There are already tons of high quality nurses who don’t want to do it anymore because of poor pay in the face of demanding hospitals and patients.
- llbeansandrice 4y ago
  pay, benefits, and hours I suppose you could just pay people more money to make it worth it but the long hours take a toll in other ways as well and contribute to burnout no matter how much you get paid.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  Poor pay? Judging by the nurses I have talked too in big proper hospitals stress and scheduling are their main concerns, not pay. Obviously higher pay would increase their abuse tolerance, but I think it is only part of the problem and a short term solution since no amount of pay will offset stress problems. County level nurses seem to have much better work conditions than hospital nurses.
  - sixothree 4y ago
    Nurses in outpatient offices haven't seen many of the pay perks related to covid that hospital staff get, even though they are still facing risk.

muh_gradle 4y ago

I can add another data point. One of my mother's friends works as a travel nurse. I don't envy her lifestyle, but she seems to find that the compensation makes it worth her time.

tubalcain 4y ago

Travel nurses make six figures and get to sample choice cuts from the local Tinder menu every time they take on a new job.

Eric_WVGG 4y ago

Funny you should mention that… reading all of this, I was thinking of a podcast interview with a nurse who was retiring from hospital work. His primary reason for leaving was being tired of fighting with hospital ownership and administration, and was planning on switching to travel nursing which appears to be more of a "gig" space. He did consider that a career change, I think in the same sort of way that a computer programmer like (presumably) most of us would consider quitting Google to work on an indie app or videogame development would be a career change. The larger point is, medical professionals are bailing from the hospital system, which looks pretty busted.