> $66,352
>
> Median staff RN salary, SF, according to salary.com.
>
> This is the pinnacle of proledom.
I am not going to get into the proledom remark because I have no interest in semantic games. However, there are some things that need to be understood when discussing the peculiar position of nursing in the world of work.
1. Nurses are primarily women. 94% or so nationally. That is huge.
2. There are many levels of nursing. The major categories are LPNs, RNs, and Nurse Practitioners.
3. Nursing requires a lot of schooling. Even LPN's who earn certificates in nursing programs do a lot of continuing ed stuff (like seminars, practicums, home study, etc.). The incomes nurses derive from their level of schooling, particularly when adding their above average commitment to reeducation, is below average.
4. The amount of "degree abandonment" in nursing is abnormally high. There is no comparable amount of education in shich those in the profession leave in the rates that nurses do.
5. Because so many nurses leave the profession (for reasons I will briefly address later), there is a permanent "shortage" of nurses.
6. HR departments generally respond to shortages by increasing wages. Nurses can earn fairly good starting salaries. Nursing has extremely low "returns to tuenure", that is, the amount of extra income they can earn as they gain experience (this is one of the reasons for dissatisfaction particularly coupled with all the continuing ed that nurses do). Nurses have little control over their workload and hours (this is unusual for the amount of education and income they have).
7. Ideally, medical providers should work as a team. To make a long and complicated story short, doctors generally aren't team players. While nurses are primarily motivated by their ability to help patients, they (like any worker) appreciate be treated with dignity and respect while working in a team.
For the amount of education they have, they have remarkably little control over the general direction of their work. Within teams they have limited authority and scope; this effects job satisfaction.
8. Nurses can and do earn higher salary by moving away from direct patient care. Interestingly, nurses often do a lot of hospital management when they are not classified as managers by work surveys. The incomes of RNs are nearly always skewed by RNs who have day to day management responsiblities (but may not be titled or classified as such). In surveys, unusually large numbers of RNs say they do no patient care.
9. Nursing is physically demanding work. In a survey I did myself of 2000 nurses, 42.6% of those leaving nursing said workplace safety was an important reason. (For the record, 62% said workload was an important reason; 58% said changed responsiblity; 52% said compensation was important; 54% had personal reasons; etc.).
Jim
"I don't want to see no doc I need attendance from my nurse around the clock because there's no prescription for me she's the one the only remedy"
--Gregory Isaacs