Hey Joeyman it comes down to "Do you feel in your heart that Nursing / Healthcare is your future ? " If it is then continue with your pursuit. Your a young man and your future is ahead of you. Do what makes you happy !

I have the passion for nursing, just I hate working with certain types of patients. I work in the float pool group, we basically work around the hospital as needed (if a regular employee calls in sick, they're short staffed, etc.). At my hospital we have 22 units, six of which are general medicine other known as med-surg. These are the busiest units of course but are also the worst to work. I feel like the patients mom... people call for things they can do themselves, they just get this general perception of the hospital and demand for us to do everything for them. Except most of the time med-surg patients are not in critical condition or 'total care' patients; therefore they are totally independent babies. Now, I do work in other areas just not as frequently. My favorite unit to work is the emergency department. I also am crossed trained as a unit secretary, EKG technician, and specific point of care tests. Often, I am placed as the mother baby unit secretary and hold the EKG pager (I work nights) and do about 4-12 EKG's total per night. I actually like that because that means I am apart of the rapid response team; virtually everyone in distress gets an EKG to check their heart rhythm. Sometimes I see some crazy stuff while doing EKG's. I must say doing an EKG on a new born baby is a pain (they don't sit still). All in all, I really already know what it takes to be an RN; just not the medications side. Care is care. If somebody was dying in front of me on the street I could probably extend their life or save them in time for the hospital.

Hey Joeyman it comes down to "Do you feel in your heart that Nursing / Healthcare is your future ? " If it is then continue with your pursuit. Your a young man and your future is ahead of you. Do what makes you happy !

You know Joeyman, that's what I used to think also. The old saying "Their will always be somebody sick" was always taught to me. Let me ask you this though, I am sure in your neck of the woods they have the same commercials that they have here in Atlanta, " Be a Medical Asst / Pharmacy Technician/ Surgical Technician / Physical Therapist / etc...

Now all of these occupations are very worthwhile and are in current demand but at what point does current demand turn into saturation ? IT used to be that way in the late 90's until the saturation point was met. Many laid off workers as well as young people of your generation are going to school for healthcare; at what point does Healthcare become the not "it" career to pursue ?

My situation is a bit different. You're right, the community colleges are flooded with young adults trying to becoming RN's. For example, my hospital is a university hospital and our nursing program has 1,000 applicants for 45 spots. I am still debating becoming and RN because sometimes I already feel burned out with nursing, just from being a CNA. We'll see.

Wanderer, I was born in 1959 right around the tail end of the Baby Boomer era. Now in my early 50's most of my fellow co workers are now realizing they will work into their 70's without blinking. All kind of reasons Wanderer, but the end result is the same, working longer.

Joeyman's generation, in my opinion, will re invent the job market. Technology will be the foundation of the economy vs a Service Sector economy that we both remember. "Make it first, make it better, make it faster" to a society thirsty for the latest and greatest. Companies will have continuing education for its employees so their labor force doesn't become obsolete right under their noses.

Research and Development will become a major player in most companies budget, a byproduct of the Global Economy. If your not current, your unemployed...................

You know Joeyman, that's what I used to think also. The old saying "Their will always be somebody sick" was always taught to me. Let me ask you this though, I am sure in your neck of the woods they have the same commercials that they have here in Atlanta, " Be a Medical Asst / Pharmacy Technician/ Surgical Technician / Physical Therapist / etc...

Now all of these occupations are very worthwhile and are in current demand but at what point does current demand turn into saturation ? IT used to be that way in the late 90's until the saturation point was met. Many laid off workers as well as young people of your generation are going to school for healthcare; at what point does Healthcare become the not "it" career to pursue ?

You are asking some great questions...? I have quietly wondered the same thing...? What will be the jobs for the Gen "X" "Y" "Millenium"...be? The we will always move forward attitude needs help. You look at the space shuttled 1972 no replacement we have reduced the number of needs for aero engineers and I could go on... just fine tuning cell phones computers and IPODS won't do it. There isn't enough need for all this to sustain a work force. Where and what will be our work force? Maybe we slow down and in a family life one of the partners stays home (more jobs available for others)... GADS! I scare myself...: As a "babyboomer" it has been a great run and until lately I didn't see the end but, today... we need to rethink the future. And Wall Street can go straight to a hot place... GREED!

You know Joeyman, that's what I used to think also. The old saying "Their will always be somebody sick" was always taught to me. Let me ask you this though, I am sure in your neck of the woods they have the same commercials that they have here in Atlanta, " Be a Medical Asst / Pharmacy Technician/ Surgical Technician / Physical Therapist / etc...

Now all of these occupations are very worthwhile and are in current demand but at what point does current demand turn into saturation ? IT used to be that way in the late 90's until the saturation point was met. Many laid off workers as well as young people of your generation are going to school for healthcare; at what point does Healthcare become the not "it" career to pursue ?

What would a counselor say today ?

Healthcare...

You know what Wanderer and FG when I went back to school for IT in the early 90's I asked the Counselor "what would be the job in high demand when I graduated ? ". She informed me it would be computers and off I went.

What would a counselor say today ? Not only do graduates have to compete with each other, you have other competitors who have experience in the field you want to get started in. I know that we are in a "Global" economy but what do you major in if your starting your college education ?

I know you can always start your own business but not everyone is the next Bill Gates. Too be honest you two, I am nervous..........................

A surplus of nurses, that's unheard of until you said it! I don't think that will last long though.

You make a good point Wanderer. In these days and times, you see numerous commercials to train in the medical field, i.e Medical Assistant, Pharmacy & Surgical technicians and the most popular, RN / LPN. Read recently that their is a glut of Nursing graduates where there isn't enough positions ( if you can believe that ) for all the people that have graduated / still in school.

smcc - you make a good point. In the Minneapolis-St Paul area of Minnesota there is a surplus of nurses...?! There was a strike and the Hospitals did not hire all the nurses back...? I can't explain it. Just like I was told we would be short of teachers in K-12 and pilots. Truth, in general there is a surplus of both. What is going on?

You make a good point Wanderer. In these days and times, you see numerous commercials to train in the medical field, i.e Medical Assistant, Pharmacy & Surgical technicians and the most popular, RN / LPN. Read recently that their is a glut of Nursing graduates where there isn't enough positions ( if you can believe that ) for all the people that have graduated / still in school.

Finance Globe & smcc - It is obvious from the discussions on this site, coupled with the link in the most recent post by FG that determining what the real 'unemployment rate' is more than what we really see or hear on the nightly news.

The story FG linked did a good job of flushing out the many aspects of the unemployment situation. Then when you drop in the idea of drawing unemployment and working part-time from time to time further complicates "... who is really unemployed..."?

My own gut instinct is that we are significantly under reporting the real unemployed and as always the government is trying to paint a rosey picture that is not really rosey. We have a serious loss of permanent jobs. What we replace them with and what type of jobs remains to be seen.

Question... what to do with the male who has not been retrained and is still waiting for that one big industrial job that is permanently gone? We have moved to more of a service based society and women are training for it and have acquired the academic skills to qualify but, why have the male counterparts NOT done that...? In Minnesota the stats support a far higher registration of females working on four year college degrees. Where are the men? Out slaying dragons and not coming to grips with the permanent employment market restructuring...!

Also, why are we not laying all this out and working with men on the need to acquire new or additional job skills. As the baby boomers retire and more modernization takes the control, where do people work?

Most of us realize that the industrial based jobs have been outsourced to a new and global world. Where does that leave the American worker in the big picture of things? I remember when there were regulated industries such as utilities and airlines along with tarriffs that equaled the difference in manufacturing something in the US or overseas... also there were no tax incentives to move jobs off shore!!!

Help... we need to realize that America had a lot to do with it's own mess now. Blame who...? In order to put people back to work some very serious rethinking on jobs has to take place. What jobs???

Also realize you can be on unemployment, work a couple days a week, have your unemployment adjusted for the days you work and be counted as still drawing unemployment while working part time as work arises..............

It should decrease, especially where the workers are involunarilly working part time.

Sources:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/11/17/BU239666.DTL
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

In my opinion, if you're employed you're employed. I think you may be overanalyzing it, but I could be wrong; I haven't researched the employment epidemic much (I read the headlines and such). So if somebody is employed part-time they're not being counted as unemployed and if somebody is employed full-time they're not being counted as unemployed.


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