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Crit Care Nurse 2004 Feb; 24(1): 10-12
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Letters to the Editor

Bedside nursing is "hard" and therefore undesirable

In the article, "New Graduates: A Precious Critical Care Resource" (October 2003:47–50), much time and effort went into describing the nursing shortage and educational paths toward emotional mentoring of new graduates. This article underlines some real issues that need to be addressed. There is a reason people over age 40, or under age 40 for that matter, don’t stay at the bedside. Who wants to work long hours, weekends, holidays, and night shifts? Who wants to tolerate an undermining pay scale, verbally abusive medical staff, and unrealistic administration? Indeed, new graduates are our precious resource; it is important to nurture them the best we can. However, sooner or later, our new graduates will come to the conclusion that bedside nursing is a hard profession. There is a reason nurses go back to school to get their master’s or doctoral degrees: for better and higher-paying jobs with less stress, better hours, and more respect. I cannot deny this fact to my new graduates if they ask. Furthermore, I would never advise my children to become nurses, unless they get a master’s or doctoral degree.

Perhaps the answer to the nursing shortage must come from those who so idealize the profession. If the author of this article, and others like her, worked at the bedside 12 to 24 hours a week, perhaps the bedside nurse can be enlightened with their presence and such positive thinking. Otherwise, those who live in glass houses should not throw stones!

M. Chauvette, RN
 N. Alexander, RN, CCRN, TNCC
 Indianapolis, Ind

 

The author responds

The American Nurses Association1 surveyed 7271 nurses, and found that 54.8% of those surveyed would not recommend nursing as a career to their children or others and 23% would "actively discourage" an interested person from entering the nursing profession. The authors of this letter to the editor aptly stated many reasons why so many nurses might share this opinion. However, these nurses equate furthering education in nursing with an escape from the patient bedside. The authors also appear to believe that new graduates in critical care who leave their positions to further their educations do so for the explicit reason of escaping the problems that are described as concomitants of bedside nursing.

In reality, I believe that advanced education is the key to advancing the profession, and that ultimately, education offers the greatest hope for alleviation of the nursing shortage. Younger-generation nurses are looking for opportunities and challenges over the entire span of their careers, not stagnation. Maintaining a vision that equates successful nursing with skill acquisition, knowledge application, and knowledge generation, as described by Wieck,2 will allow them to continue to make an impact at the bedside rather than drive them away from direct patient care. Wieck’s model of the nurse as doer, thinker, practitioner, and researcher2 offers veterans, as well as the new generation of nurses the opportunity to thrive, not just survive in today’s ever changing healthcare environment.

More than 20 years of critical care nursing practice as a staff nurse, charge nurse, staff development educator, and academic nursing instructor (who maintained practice hours at the bedside while teaching) have taught me that failure to communicate the many opportunities available to professional nurses will ultimately result in the members of the new generation bypassing careers in nursing. Are we as incumbent nurses ready to see nursing as we know it disappear altogether? I do not wish to see successive generations avoid nursing because they feel it is not a meaningful profession. What opportunities and challenges might future generations miss by foregoing the hard work, but also the untold satisfaction, that a career in nursing affords! I know that there are other nurses who share this belief about our profession, and I am grateful to them for mentoring the next generation of nurses who are so badly needed to care for critically ill patients.

References

  1. American Nurses Association. Analysis of American Nurses Association staffing survey, February 2001. Available at: http://www.nursingworld.org/staffing/ana_pdf.pdf. Accessed November 2003.
  2. Wieck K. Faculty for the millennium: changes needed to attract the emerging workforce into nursing. J Nurs Educ . 2003;42:151–158.[Medline]
Ainslie T. Nibert, RN, PhD
 Houston, Tex





This Article
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