Obstacle
or
Opportunity?
February 8, 2016 --
The first obstacle a new grad nurse encounters is the dearth of jobs
for new grads. It's easy to get into nursing school. Afterward, it's
hard to get that first job. The schools don't tell us this.
Reluctance to hire new grads is understandable from the hospitals'
point of view; a new nurse is a big investment. It can be months
before she (almost always a she; my graduating class was 85% female)
reaches full productivity.
Something that is also not discussed is the content of nursing
education. The schools are obsolete!
What I saw in nursing school: a bunch of grizzled old farts who
couldn't cut it as actual nurses ("those who can't, teach") and who
haven't kept up with the rapidly-changing world of healthcare.
Case in point: today's nurse spends quite literally more time in
front of computers than in front of patients (proven by numerous
studies). Yet informatics courses in nursing school curricula are
rare.
Even at my alma mater and national leader UCSF, Dean Vlahov declined my
request to meet to talk about this.
The result? Nurses helpless and frustrated by technology, decreased
productivity and reduced safety, defying nursing's #1 mandate.
The upside? This is an opportunity. My software projects will enable
technology to be a help rather than an obstacle for nursing.
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