An appeal to the new RNs

Recently, the December 2010 Nurse Licensure Examination Result was released. In it, 29,711 new nurses have officially joined the bulk of health professionals who comprise almost or near or maybe more than 600,000 as of present. These new batch of nurses will be part of the more than hundreds of thousands of nurses who are either working or jobless.

For the past few years, majority of nurses tend to stay in limbo, waiting for opportunity to come right at their doorstep. Majority apply in hospitals, or go into training and pay for their training fees. But admit it, not everybody is lucky to get into a hospital and work as a regular employee. Nowadays, nurses work in call centers (yada, yada, yada) or tend to enter in jobs which would consider them underemployed - working outside their scope of their real job description. Nurses are booming in large numbers in such a way that they are becoming more of a liability rather than an asset: a notion that hurts the nursing profession more than it hurts the person who is unemployed.

An appeal to the new nurses who cannot find real nursing jobs are best done in published articles like journals, editorials, opinions, and blogs (for that matter). Through these media, they are constantly reminded that nursing isn't just the only road to take. To be honest, nursing is one of the most noble jobs in the world, but let's face it: there are WAY TOO MANY NURSES. If Chuck Norris was an employer, then all nurses would have been employed. Sadly, Chuck Norris is not one.

There are so many roads for nurses to take: in one of my blogs, I shared some alternative opportunities for nurses to partake, bringing with them the knowledge that they possess. If it is not too much to ask, forgive me for being such a biased jackass, but I'll go straight to the point:

ENTER MEDICINE

Nurses are better off as doctors, IMHO. Nurses have been the doctor's most reliable partner for hundreds of years, and with that experience, nurses have the sheer capacity to become good doctors. Entering Med with Nursing as a pre-med course is basically the best way to do it: Nursing knowledge doesn't become transient when one enters Med. Instead, the knowledge imparted form the good college days are constantly improved, catalyzed by the lessons taught to Med students. In other words, what was learned in Nursing are enhanced by the topics in Med. In terms of clinicals, Nursing students tend to adjust well into a lot of scenarios which occurs most likely when they become Med students. Med is a challenging yet fun course, or better yet, vocation. It improves the Nurse-slash-Med-student in a personal and professional manner, adding the curing role to the original caring role. Lastly, Medicine is the epitome of all health professions combined, so entering Med is one of the best options to take, besides entering Graduate School for a Master's Degree or going into nursing-related business.

Take it from the Nurses who have entered Med and now are either Med students, Residents, or Consultants. They know the feeling of adding more knowledge to the basic knowledge imparted during the Nursing days. Becoming more knowledgeable of so many diseases, treatments, and health care in general feels so surreal, one feels so accomplished when he gets to learn more through Med what he has learned back then in Nursing.

So think about it. I'm not forcing you, the reader, into entering Med. There are a lot of options to take. I'm just emphasizing one.

Or you can grow a conscience in the next 5 minutes and see where that takes you.