As a new yorker this has me worried. Next time i'm in the hospital I'm going to ask the people attending to me if they used to be in finance. if the doctor says yes i'm out of there.
Anonymous writes:
yes..being a nurse is not a bad business to get into. Maybe 1 day they will offer a 3 month night school course and that will be great
Anonymous | 03.26.08 - 5:31 pm | #
That will be for the coveted NBC... Nurse Broker Certification... available to ex-mortgage brokers only.
15 months does seem rather quick, unless they only count the months that are spent in a classroom (4.5 month semesters, 3 month trimesters). In colleges these days, much of freshman & sophomore years are spent satisfying general requirements such as english, humanities, social sciences, art, etc. You don't get into the meat of your major until junior & senior years. By accepting folks who have already gone through the b.s. English 101 courses by having a bachelor of science degree, this 15 month program makes sense.
Imagine yourself an experienced, capable RN, who actually did the four-year thing and knows her way around a little, you know, science, being Charge Nurse for the day and getting one of these new recycled-financiers with the "condensed" degree on her shift.
Guess who's on bedpan duty?
Some of these people might be able to BS their way around a financial institution, but I've known a lot of nurses. My money's on the nurses.
But Tanta, don't forget that the 1st 2 years of that four year program, for the 18 & 19 yr. old, are core classes, not nursing classes. So a 15 months cram program for an already college grad, compared to a 20 and 21 yr. old's last 2 yrs. of college, may not be a disadvantage.
Rule of thumb from having worked in a teaching hospital (Risk Management), don't get seriously ill in July...that's when the new doctors start.
Actually, you're right in that the newbies won't be thrown automatically into the highest stress situations. But there's a crying need for good nurses and I'm comfortable that those who take the condensed courses will do alright. If you've ever taken science courses with "older" folks, then you'll see that they're very largely more focused and will adapt well.
What do you think saved Pittsburgh in the late '70s - '80s?
I don't think they're any less suited to nursing than they were to financial services.
Financial companies absorbed hordes of people who were far more interested in other lines of work, and better at them, too. But as long as it was a machine for printing money, it sucked all the talent out of the applicant pool.
They have to have the basic science completed BEFORE they start the nursing sequence...
Students with a baccalaureate degree in another field who have successfully completed prerequisite courses in nutrition, chemistry, statistics, anatomy and physiology, microbiology, and developmental psychology can enter the College of Nursing, and complete the Bachelor of Science degree program in 15 months of full time study. Students are admitted to the College as undergraduates with the following advanced standing credits: 44 in the liberal arts based on having a bachelors degree and 20 credits in the science and prerequisite requirements that are completed prior to matriculation to the College of Nursing.
Looks reasonable to me... and I'm not a complete moron, was pre-med prior to engineering & worked at the U of Mn Hospitals doing research (worked for the head of the Med School admission committee). Didn't like hospitals so stayed chem engineering w/ biochem emphasis.
Little personal story... I've been in tech for a long time.
I watched the company I was working for outsource over half its staff to India.
Thought the same thing to myself... tough to outsource the medical profession.
I had a BS and an MS already, with quite a bit of the hard sciences, albeit 20 years out of date.
I love academia, just because it builds such a just little world. If you had great grades, nothing else matters.
I applied to a local university. After submitting my application, I realized I'd forgotten some ancient high school accomplishments. Called admissions, officer said "Oh, that doesn't matter. You're accepted."
Accepted within a week. CLEPd out of almost a year of undergrad work right into the second semester of A&P, advanced genetics, all those labs.
Killer coursework, especially for someone holding down a day job. My days would start at 5:15 AM, end after midnight for months on end.
6 credits short of BS in bio, got accepted to a prestigious PA program with almost no question. Admissions officer said they were "looking for students from alternate backgrounds." Meaning, I guess, an old fart from IT.
Going on would've required quitting work and going full time. But I could've been a PA in something like 3 years. I almost did it. Maybe I should've done it.
This person seems like a sincere individual making an admirable career change and life choice. Why are you knocking him/her? Nursing is not rocket science and this person feels that this line of work would give them a better purpose in society.
Before I entered the mortgage business I was a temp at a health insurance company and I worked in their underwriting department. Finance people are saints compared to the wickedness I saw. Underwriters denying people medical treatment in the name of "risk management" and protecting the company's money. But to these underwriters who did not have to look these people in the eye, denying a few lives begging for medical treatment was all part of "risk management". The company rewarded such behavior and the underwriters seemed to have no conscience at all.
So, I guess our next crisis is going to be in the medical industry. I definitely need to start taking better care of myself before medical costs REALLY shoot up (mmmm.... $1,000 for a checkup, I can see it now)...
I am an internist (Just like Dr. House on TV ) at a major hospital system in Texas. I read this article with fascination. What I find perplexing is the fact that in both medicine and nursing - the impetus is already beginning to offshore as much as possible. Already - INDIAN and PAKISTANI doctors are reading X-rays at night - many many pathology slides are being read by foreign doctors over the internet. The medical powers that be have SOOOO miscalculated medical needs in the 1980s and 1990s that we are having to import many many MDs just to meet the demand - especially in the primary care specialties. At many medical meetings today - I can scarcely understand what is being said because the English is so bad.
As for nursing -- they are some of the most overworked underpaid abused people I know - to find a nurse over 40 is very uncommon. The nursing administrators know this - and are actively recruiting nurses by the dozens, scores, and hundreds from all over Africa and the Philippines. I have had the administrators repeatedly tell me they would rather have foreign nurses than Americans - they work for peanuts and do not bitch and moan like Americans do. This is not a recipe for success from these financial dropouts. I am also somewhat concerned about these 15 month programs - the graduates I have seen are ummm - less than desirable. And FYI - on Friday and Saturday night - at any hospital in Dallas - the chance of having a nurse able to speak English on the other end of the phone taking care of critically ill patients is almost non-existent.
This severe lack of qualified people - both medical and nursing - is one of the big crises in medicine today - and are ignorant professional leadership has their head in the sand.
I just wonder how long these huge salaries can continue to be paid to medical doctors - already there are severe signs of stress in the accounts receivable areas - I hear it all the time in the lunchroom. For the most part - the medical community absolutely has it coming - and although part of it - I have been warning for years - and will not be unhappy to see the tsunami on the way. We have failed to police ourselves on so many levels - it is truly frightening if the public knew what was going on.
I am sorry to ramble - I just am concerned that many of these "future" nurses and doctors have no idea what they are in for.
The Doc is right. I've been an RN for 25 years. You can't start when you're 40, unless your last job was in a dairy farm or a slaughterhouse. You can't become one in 15 months, under any conditions.
It might have something to do with having spent the last several years being treated to the "we're here to help people" line from the subprime lenders.
At enough of a level of generalization, every job or industry involves "helping people." Janitors help people. Undertakers help people. The clerk behind the counter at my local grocery helps me all the time. Either the term means something specific or it doesn't.
I do flinch over this thing about how nursing is just more "helping people." I think it is (or should be) about providing professional medical care. That's certainly "helpful," but why is it these people make it sound like they're answering some long-repressed call to become angels of mercy or something?
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They are leaving an unstable industry for one that looks to have better long-term prospects, and that offers a professional degree. So? So what's wrong with just saying you're going where the reliable money is? Why does it have to be overlaid with this idea that these people "never really fit in" in finance because their "real heart" is in "helping people"?
I preferred the second guy's story, since he seemed a touch more upfront about his motives.
And I love nurses. But I have found few who are given to soppy saccharine rhetoric about what they do.
I am sorry to ramble - I just am concerned that many of these "future" nurses and doctors have no idea what they are in for.
dagan68 | 03.26.08 - 5:59 pm | #
I know EXACTLY what they are in for - 8 hour shifts fighting with insurance companies for their hospital or clinic. They speak both languages.
So, I guess our next crisis is going to be in the medical industry. I definitely need to start taking better care of myself before medical costs REALLY shoot up (mmmm.... $1,000 for a checkup, I can see it now)...
No, no, no... they will all be 'No Cost' just like the closing fees for a refi mortgage...
I work in a medical lab and my wife is a nurse. I have to agree with degan68. The medical field stinks, but really there are few places to run in the outsourced global economy.
FYI, my wife and I make the exact same money we made 15 years ago. Remember 15 years ago when gas was $1 gallon.
I don't know. I think a lot of intelligent people working in financial services have realized that much of the industry no longer provides anything of real value to the economy, the nation, the world, or themselves, other than a paycheck. It's not hard to see that nursing does provide value.
Also, most people starting out in any profession have delusions that real working life will disabuse them of later.
Man, I thought I was a crabby, negative, glass-is-totally-empty kind of person, but I can't hold a candle to some here. Believe it or not, there really are nurses and medical professionals who get some fulfillment from doing what they see as helping people. If a couple of seemingly intelligent Americans want to enter that important profession in part for that reason, more power to them. There are nurses and doctors for whom helping people on a true human-to-human level is distinctly secondary.
Nursing is a profession (like teaching)that seems to be more of a vocation than an occupation. There are a lot of people in the finance industry that will be confronted with the decsion of what to do next. Would you have been less galled if these people were aspiring to become teachers?
I think most of them will wish that they had become teachers. As others pointed out, nursing past the age of 50 is really hard. The work is labor intensive.
The only reason nursing and teaching are seen as "vocations" is that you can then construct them as "women's work" ("caring professions") and pay them less than other occupations that require equivalent skill and effort.
Believe it or not, there really are nurses and medical professionals who get some fulfillment from doing what they see as helping people.
I don't disagree.
I think a lot of people "get some fulfillment from doing what they see as helping people." Nobody wants to be treated by nurses who got into this because they are amused by making people worse.
The financial industry can, in fact, "help people." But only if it chucks its silly rhetoric and gets serious in analyzing what financial moves really do help people, and also about building skill levels and serious codes of conduct. Just wanting to feel all warm and fuzzy about people getting those house keys at the closing has not, in fact, been very "helpful" to anyone except the people who indulge themselves in it.
U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd on Wednesday expressed concern that JPMorgan Chase & Co Chairman Jamie Dimon held a Federal Reserve Bank of New York board seat while trying to acquire Bear Stearns.
Anyone have any info on this piece from Wall Street Examiner? I don't have subscription.
New Supply Bearing Down as Treasury Finances Collapse- WSE Pro Fed Report
by Lee Adler, Wednesday, March 26, 2008, in Money and The Fed, Professional Edition | Permalink |Comments (
US Government finances are falling apart. In another mind bending shock today, the Treasury announced yet another surprise CMB auction. This one will raise $26 billion in new cash tomorrow in an action completely unforeseen by the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee. That makes $56 billion in new Treasury borrowing this week that the experts did not foresee less than two months ago. Total new supply will be $78 billion, which will drain cash from the market at issuance on Thursday and Monday. If the Fed does not act aggressively to offset this cash drain, the markets could crack.
My sister (now a PHD Professor in Nursing as well as an RN practitioner for over 20 years) started her nursing career in a post BA program like this. She had the advantage of being an Outward Bound instructor rather than a finance type to start out with, though.
I like nurses. I almost died a couple years ago. I spent a fair amount of time in the hospital as a result. The best nurses were ex-military. My favorite was a Nam vet.
Fairfax Hospital where I live outsources all the X-ray examination. Also all the Dr. transcripts go to India to be typed up. I think one of the X-ray readers is in Australia.
Fairfax (InNova) buys their power in bulk. 3 years ago the man that does it tells me they do a 5 year plan for budget projections. He said they were planning on $4.00 gas before that 5 years were up. Why that tied into MegaKilowatts I don't know.
I thought this was a Finance and Economics blog with an emphasis on RE of all types blog !
Sorry, I have an aversion to things medical and dental - not that I neglect any of the tests appropriate to my age, gender and custom and practice in the USA ( and damned glad I haven't neglected them, btw, and strongly recommend that people do that same ) - but damnit STILL...
CR, next topic PLEASE ! How about this story: - NY Times
Report Assails Auditor for Work at Failed Home Lender
By VIKAS BAJAJ ( Nice scooter )
In a sweeping accusation against one of the countrys largest accounting firms, an investigator released a report on Wednesday that said improper and imprudent practices by a once high-flying mortgage company were condoned and enabled by its auditors.
...
KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms, endorsed a move by New Century Financial, a failed mortgage company, to change its accounting practices in a way that allowed the lender to report a profit, rather than a loss, at the height of the housing boom, an independent report commissioned by a division of the Justice Department concluded.
Tanta - you should really stick to what you know. Nurses that are coming out of the 15 month program are just as qualified as any other nurse. And it is very hard to get into these programs and they require a lot of prerequisites - of you know science classes.
And for someone who usually does their homework an RN is essentially like getting an associates degree in nursing. I would venture a guess that most of the RNs in this country do not have a 4 year bachelor degree in nursing.
A few months ago, I quit my job in a trading firm to join Google as a software engineer. I wish I had done it sooner; I'm much happier now. I really don't think I'll move back to Financials now.
I'm also glad that I moved out of the industry right before the collapse. There's going to be a new tide of people looking for jobs soon.
Five years go I was about to go to nursing school, but chose to get into appraising instead. Needless to say that was a dumb desicion. Now it's between nursing school again and fishing guide. For those considering a career move, take appraising off of your list.
I think it's great - these could be the folks who will finally figure out how to outsource direct care. Or they can slice and dice the patients into tranches and then say "whocoodanode?" when they find out the patients don't function quite the same afterwards.
"Accelerated" professional degree or certificate programs are always iffy. You always learn what you need to do to pass the tests and certifications; you don't always learn the job itself.
I went through a 15-month accelerated master's program in education. It made me a master of arts, but not all that great a teacher.
I am sorry to ramble - I just am concerned that many of these "future" nurses and doctors have no idea what they are in for.
My father was a doctor (he died many years ago) and saw this stuff coming in the 1980s. Many of his colleagues told him was crazy back then. When I run into them these days, they tell me "Your father was a very smart man; he was before his time".
He actively discouraged all his children from medicine. Of course, I ended up in academia, which is suffering from many of the cost overruns/mismanagement that the medical profession is.
Tanta said: "I can pretty much vouch for the fact that having an undergraduate business degree and years of experience in finance qualifies you to give other people heart attacks. But is it really the kind of experience that should let you cram nursing school into 15 months?"
Well, aren't you just the height?
Would this be as funny if it were a factory worker who just lost his job after 20 years, had zero chance of finding another one like it, and had an opportunity to re-train for something else where he could get work?
Sort of departed from the Populist theme here, didn't you?
Ten years ago I had a 40-ish friend in finance at a tech company who decided she'd had enough. She realized that she could be doing the same thing in 10 years or she could be a doctor with her own practice.
Today she's a doctor with her own practice.
I don't think any of these people would appreciate your cheap shots. I know I find them a little offensive.
None of you want to know what I said to the last doctor who told me "I became a doctor so I could help people."
My med school boss who was head of admissions where I was doing research would occasionally read applicants essays to me - anonymously of course - you know, the ones where they said they wanted to 'help people'. He told me those folks rarely went to the top of the selection list.
On the contrary the essays demonstrating a realistic vision of medicine (hard and dirty job though well compensated) & one where the applicant could demonstrate their personal aptitude for those difficult tasks moved pretty high up the list. It was quite an experience seeing the selection process from the inside (somewhat like sausage being made).
My father was a doctor (he died many years ago) and saw this stuff coming in the 1980s. Many of his colleagues told him was crazy back then. When I run into them these days, they tell me "Your father was a very smart man; he was before his time".
He actively discouraged all his children from medicine. Of course, I ended up in academia, which is suffering from many of the cost overruns/mismanagement that the medical profession is.
Sounds EXACTLY like my ex-boss... he too discouraged me from going to medical school circa 1980 - unless I liked the idea of working for a large corporation in which case why not do it as an engineer - costs less in tuition & effort. He would then tell me about this thing coming called an 'HMO'... they were already common in the Twin Cities but would go national and soon... in an effort to better 'manage the costs'.
Would this be as funny if it were a factory worker who just lost his job after 20 years, had zero chance of finding another one like it, and had an opportunity to re-train for something else where he could get work?
I really don't believe there are very many 20-year veterans of the assembly line who believe they could spend 15 months in an "accelerated" program and voila! become an RN pulling down $70K a year. I'm sure many of them could accomplish that, but I doubt they'd be blithe about it.
It's usually people in certain white collar sectors who have so much endless faith in themselves and their abilities that they never doubt their potential to turn on a dime and go in a new direction. After all, these are the people who spent decades being told that nothing else matters if you "have the right attitude."
Keep in mind that while every medical institution handles their nurses differently, some hospitals require a significant amount of certification as well as continuing education. My wife recently started as a critical care nurse on one of the best ICUs in the US and they put her through significant certification program with extensive objective and difficult testing. At least this particular institution, just because you met the gates to work in the state doesnt mean you met the gates to work in their facility. Nursing involves an extremely broad spectrum of tasks and people who graduate these programs have to do a lot of work before they get to do complicated stuff.
The other factor that is essential for the patient and is at times overlooked by bean counters (because they can not think it such a manner) is bedside manner. That skill requires dealing with people effectively and if not present can negate a recipient's (or the kin of a recipient) ability to think that they are receiving proper medical care. I dare say that skill has little to do with a hard science, and more to do with social science of which there are many paths to take to get there.
The other aspect of this that I find disappointing is that you have unfortunately lumped a profession like nursing with people in finance on this web site which is, in my opinion, neither appropriate nor fair. Nursing is a much regulated profession than anything in finance. There are competency exams and testing, albeit not terribly difficult but a much higher barrier to entry than someone who can say "I can make that deal!"
In addition, you certainly can tell me all about how the steps you took during your career in finance and how it made you better of than the next person in what you did as a person in finance, but you failed to explain credibly why the current shortage in nursing should exclude people who worked in finance and your reasons that the path these people are taking somehow degrades our medical care or is unappropriate as a medical professional. Your assumptions, while logical to you, do not automactically correlate. Leave that to the medical professionals and not Tanta.
Quite frankly, while I would agree with you in principle that someone who spent all their life in nursing will be, in all probability, better at it than someone who hasn't, but we are now in a cycle in the financial world where alot of people who have been doing this all of their lives got it terribly wrong.
Finally, I think that medical providers find themselves constantly self-correcting much more often than most other professions because of their ultimate predator, the trail lawyer. Those company eaters are constantly swimming around it looking to eat someone for medical malpractice. Medical malpractice is much easier to prove than let's say, some shareholder who is claiming they aren't getting maximum performance.
Anyway, I generally think that what you write is extremely informative but in this case I think that you have to do your research first before posting something about another profession that quite frankly, you haven't given a reason as to why you are qualified to talk about it.
Now it's between nursing school again and fishing guide. For those considering a career move, take appraising off of your list.
CowTools | 03.26.08 - 6:45 pm | #
Shocker just in - dryfly votes for fishing guide... but maybe that's just me.
The other aspect of this that I find disappointing is that you have unfortunately lumped a profession like nursing with people in finance on this web site which is, in my opinion, neither appropriate nor fair.
Nursing is a profession that requires skill and has real accountability for screw ups.
This is in stark contrast to the "professionals" in finance. Given the state of affairs they deserve the disdain they are getting. And if you think this is meanspirited then just wait another 6 months.
As I have aged and had more savings to invest, I have been nothing but stunned at the general level of ignorance of the people working in finance. They know their little thing and that is it. And, of course, their little thing is always great, great great!
No accountability. Pathetic and definitely not professional.
Seb,
I think Tanta was thinking more along the lines of the phebotomist (sp?) who does a bad stick and now your arm is permanently paralized or if not permanently at least doesn't work right and is painfull as hell for a while. Full disclosure: my wife supervised the phebotomists at a childrens hospital and who got a bad stick giving blood.
I watched a poorly trained phebotomist trying to stick my late wife when she was in the hospital and it was not pretty. Tanta is right to question whether 15 months is enough training.
In my line of work, if I made a mistake, we just installed a new part or worse just got out the cutting and welding tools.
Tanta, then explain this comment to me because I don't get it.
"I can pretty much vouch for the fact that having an undergraduate business degree and years of experience in finance qualifies you to give other people heart attacks. But is it really the kind of experience that should let you cram nursing school into 15 months?"
I don't know Tanta, why don't you explain it to me as to why it should not be done? By putting the article under the title of "This ought to keep you up at night:", you are implying that anyone who moves from finance to nursing is an issue, right?
Retraining is not easy. I used to retrain about every 2 years (IT). I am old and still have to look at yet another major retraining soon. I am very good at what I do but I have been looking at the backgrounds of those hired for comparable positions nationally. I can't compete.
I would be unable to get hired for the position I have now probably. If I was let go I would be soooo screwed.
In IT there used to be a lot of paper "engineers." Not anymore.
It's usually people in certain white collar sectors who have so much endless faith in themselves and their abilities that they never doubt their potential to turn on a dime and go in a new direction.
The acceptability of such midlife career changes is actually one of the great strengths of American society.
In many countries in Europe, the education system decides your life-long career path before you start high school. It's incredibly inefficient and leads to misallocation of human resources.
These people are doing exactly what they should do. As a society, we want them retrained for productive work-- not sitting around lamenting the demise of the financial services industry...
Some great comments in this thread, but not a lot about the more fundamental issue: these kind of mid-life, major career changes are being pushed on more and more people these days thanks to job insecurity, "global wage arbitrage", and various other forces in the economy.
I know economists see this as healthy (people "retraining" for the shift in opportunities), but realistically the number of people who can retrain for a career with any significant training requirement is rather limited, due to the required resources of money and time. After 40, it gets harder still.
In law we're seeing a spike of new lawyers who were Computer Scientists/Engineers in their past lives but decided to abandon the field in the 2001-2003 recession. Of course now there's a shortage of people in technical fields, but the investment in law school certainly made rational sense for the people who abandoned the field at the time... how could they have predicted jobs would be back by 2008 when the whole field was facing offshoring? And will the jobs in computer fields disappear again in this recession?
It boggles my mind the level of job insecurity people are faced with these days. My parents' generation never had to contend with similar levels of uncertainty.
I believe we have to be careful here. Never estimate the ability of a reporter to bait his audience, especially when there's envy and/or racism involved.
That said, it's the lack of maturity and introspection that I find most bothersome in the quotes. These individuals participated in (and profited from) a hugely harmful ponzi scheme and yet there's no expression of awareness or regret.
Finance in America has done much to both help and harm people. The general population does not understand banking. Henry Ford said once that if the masses understood banking there would be a revolution by morning.
Any idiot knows that when you have a boom, you will have a bust. Housing boom in the present = housing bust in the future. Just look at the history of our country. A series of boom to bust to boom to bust in never ending cycles. The boom bust cycle is especially pronounced in the Western United States and can be traced back to the Railroads.
There were a lot of people in the mortgage business who should not have been in. But the average American consumer thinks they know it all and has a hostility towards bankers. This kind of populist rhetoric goes back to the frontier days when the American consumer had yet to discover soap. John Q Public still smells bad in my opinion.
Too many red pills will impair your ability to read the note you are signing when you take on the debt.
Nobody held a gun to peoples' heads when they made bad choices. It is time for people to own up to their mistakes.
Cases of abuse do exist but the vast majority of foreclosures are due to people not thinking about the long term consequences of their actions.
This happens in every aspect of life. Ask a teenager why they got pregnant... The answer is that it felt good at the time. Now there is a baby who will be with you for the rest of your life. People are just like that. Quit blaming your mortgage company or whoever for what is a difficult time for many, many people.
One thing I've noticed in my numerous visits to the hospital with my 80+ year old father is that the amount of interaction between nurse and patient is relatively small. The nurse does intake, but after that the primary point of contact is the "patient care assistants" formerly known as nurse's aides. I've observed, and I have heard nurses complain, that most of their work is paperwork.
Ergo the move from finance to nursing may not be that much of a stretch. (SNARK!)
Where did I get the idea that the appraisal business was doing well with all the bank foreclosures?
The appraisal management companies have taken over and will only continue to pilfer the coffers with new GSE appraisal guidelines for 2009. REO appaisals used to be at least $450 and I feel lucky to get $275. I've calculated that the average fee is down about 30% at my company. Plus, I did over a 100 REOs last year and they get very old, real quick, unless you really like filth.
Shocker just in - dryfly votes for fishing guide... but maybe that's just me.
Yes, I reckon if I can unwind this deal in an orderly fashion I could be set-up by salmonflies. I've also applied for some county assessors jobs in sleepy rocky mountain counties.
Tanta writes:
Would this be as funny if it were a factory worker who just lost his job after 20 years, had zero chance of finding another one like it, and had an opportunity to re-train for something else where he could get work?
I really don't believe there are very many 20-year veterans of the assembly line who believe they could spend 15 months in an "accelerated" program and voila! become an RN pulling down $70K a year. I'm sure many of them could accomplish that, but I doubt they'd be blithe about it.
A associates degree requring 72 hours and passing the state RN test is all that is required here. It takes 4 terms.
If someone has already had the English and a complete of the other humanities pre-reqs along with some of the science classes, then it could easily be shortened to 3 terms.
4 terms fit nicely into 15 months: Fall, Srping, Summer and Fall - and they are done.
And yes, they then sit for the RN exam and are RNs.
If they want, they can then transfer and get a BA in nursing.
So it sounds like the 15 month program is pretty normal as it would encompass 4 terms.
I just wonder how long these huge salaries can continue to be paid to medical doctors - already there are severe signs of stress in the accounts receivable areas
Thanks.....
My personal "bubble index" is counting the number of billboards an industry has along a 40 mile stretch of interstate.
In '99 almost half were technology companies (not sure why Sun thought believed that most commuters would be ready customers).
In '06 it was home builders.
Lately, it's all hospitals pumping their maternity wards and other services.
The Doctors may get hit when the bubble bursts but hospitals are going to be burned. Way too many of them and every one of them trying to specialize in one of the money-centers (trauma, cancer, maternity).
This is an interesting thread. I was an EMT for many years. Fun fact about me So I've work with all sorts of nurses, doctors, and assorted medical personnel in situations of high high high stress and not very pretty medical needs. I have great respect for some nurses and doctors, little for others. Like most professions.
But I'll say something from personal experience. You know that whole "helping people" thing is really not applicable in the way it is presented. Sure, you help people, but I never really thought of it that way. And you really can't think of people as people either or you get all messed up emotionally. It's not a person, it's the blunt force head trauma in 4, or the gunshot wound in 7, or the heart attack in 2. You have to have a little detachment or you burn out hard. The only thing that I never totally detached from was kids. No one likes to see kids messed up.
So that's why I'm with Tanta on the helping people thing.
That said, it's the lack of maturity and introspection that I find most bothersome in the quotes. These individuals participated in (and profited from) a hugely harmful ponzi scheme and yet there's no expression of awareness or regret.
The quotes are almost all regret. And Ponzi scheme? Really? Do you even know what jobs these individuals actually had? Of course you don't.
Also sounds like a lot of the people now going into nursing would have gone into it many many years earlier had there not been a detour into finance.
Speaking as an old fart of 47 who is attempting to make the transition to being a patent lawyer, I wouldn't get too miffed at the individuals involved....
I know I'm jumping in kind of late, but I'll add my 2 cents worth. I love nurses and the nursing profession. I have several relatives who are nurses. It is a very difficult career field, and I take my hat off to anyone who answers the calling to be a nurse.
With that being said, a lot of these "I retrained to be a nurse" articles rub me the wrong way. Just tell everyone to go into a health care field and avoid the issues surrounding the fact that so many of our jobs are being offshored! Everyone in my home state of Michigan, from laid off factory workers to displaced IT workers, is advised to become a nurse or some other sort of medical professional. What if you don't want to be a nurse? What if you hate being around sick people?
Just because there will always be sick people, and the baby-boomers are reaching the age where they will need a lot more medical treatment, doesn't mean people will be able to afford health care. Salaries for many people have been stagnant or declining. Fewer employers are offering paid health insurance coverage. Those lucky enough to have employer-sponsored coverage are required to pay for higher percentages of their premiums and are faced with much higher deductibles. Hardly any employer pays for post-retirement health care. Has anyone checked out the cost of private health insurance lately? Hospitals are still building new facilities and expanding existing ones at astonishing rates. I can just see a huge bubble bursting in the health care industry.
""I was never happy in my life in finance," said Sadowsky, 39, a former liaison for institutional investors and money managers at Citibank and Invesco"
In a less politically correct world this woman would have been called a secretary. Whether she will or will not make a good nurse is certainly a great unknown, but I don't really see the point in trying to bash her change of career. As someone upthread posited it looks like there are very few people here who actually have a clue about what people in finance actually do and why it exists at all.
Just as an aside, one of my partners has a Phd. in biostatistics and has done quite a bit of work in both basic research and clinical drug trials. So for those of you worrying that unemployed quants might find their way into doing stats for a drug trial you are correct that it could happen but probably wrong to worry.
I don't know what the big deal is on this nursing thing. It's no different than the computer field, where a know nothing can become a full fledged, highly paid network engineer in a weekend.
Besides, soon we will be able to book a vacation with gall bladder surgery. The insurers will charter a plane to send us overseas for health care. Haven't you all been reading the news? Outsource the patient, and get rid of all the extra doctors that won't be needed any more. Free market beats Hillary care any day. Right?
My wife is a nurse with a 4 year degree. The last 2 years of the degree are nursing related, the first two have pre reqs like chemistry, biology and anatomy. If your nurse doesn't have BSN written on her badge, she may not have a 4 year degree, depending on the hospital badging policy.
Most nurses do not have a 4 year degree. You can become an RN with a 2 year junior college degree. This is the most common level of education for new nurses today - I believe. A bunch of nurses over 50 became nurses by getting some 6 month certificate way back when.
15 months seems a little short, but smart people with any degree who pick up the additional 15 months may be better than a number of existing nurses. Many of them don't go the extra mile or try to understand what is going on with the patient, they just hand out drugs and do the bare minimum. If the ones with some intellect and curiousity apply themselves they will be better than those who just see it as a job.
What's really disconcerting here is that nursing is one of the biggest growth areas for the job market.
But who really pays for health care? The government.
I don't know why so many people are piling on regarding two people's choice for a career change. Everyone involved benefit when people enjoy their work. And, this helps to preserve a few spaces for those who LOVE their jobs in finance but otherwise would have been "displaced."
I just left medicine after 6 years of working in a Level II trauma center.
Nursing is not that hard -- anyone that can earn a 4 year degree in anything can become an RN. Skills are also not hard, it takes about 2 hours to learn to do IVs (granted a year or two of practice to become very proficient and ultimately the best seem to be genetically gifted). Nursing does not require huge amounts of expertise. ICU/NICU nurses are very knowledgeable, most other nurses are clueless (my experience is that about 1 in 20 floor/ward nurses are "very knowledgeable"). Take a poll of nurses and they will tell you that nurses with 2-year degrees are MORE capable than 4 year nurses (admittedly there is probably bias in that more nurses are 2 year versus 4). Nursing is a skills job, not a thinking job (that is, you have to do drug calculations, but you are not deciding what drug to give) so 4 year nurses come out with a bunch of useless theories whereas 2-year nurses are given the bootcamp treatment on what they need to get the job done when they hit the floor.
The most funny thing was how nurses and techs would tell me that I had to become a doctor and the doctors would tell me to get out of medicine because it's a racket.
The docs were right, I left to become an analyst and couldn't be happier. A nurse or tech at a hospital is a cog in a wheel. Even in my role as an analyst I have 10x the autonomy that I did in the hospital -- far more opportunity to use my brain (esp. creativity which, as you can imagine, has zero value in medicine), etc.
I really don't believe there are very many 20-year veterans of the assembly line who believe they could spend 15 months in an "accelerated" program and voila! become an RN pulling down $70K a year.
Do nurses make $70K a year to start? I feel like I don't know anything.
Do nurses make $70K a year to start? I feel like I don't know anything.
calvert | 03.26.08 - 10:05 pm | #
Depends on where you are & your cert level... to start as a plain vanilla RN it would be hard to get $70K most places. But an experienced BSN in a major metro area could do that or better. My soon-to-be son-in-law's sister is a BSN in Manhattan & does over $100K... but all that gets her is a tiny shitty apartment. She is considering taking a job at Mayo in rural SE Minnesota for half of that but she could buy a house there on that income (and still fall under the 3:1 income rule).
Great points. Sadowsky is a poster-child for "title-inflation" in the financial services industry. I'm only surprised she wasn't also VP of somethingorother.
Whoever commented that ex-quants 'might' find work in big pharma - oh, was that rich. If he had any idea of the current labcoat-to-stat-modeler boffin ratio, he'd be calling his congressman, demanding a massive FDA investigation.
I sincerely hope more finance people are capable of PASSING nursing classes and achieve certification. It's not a slam dunk -- unlike being a mortgage broker or a risk manager at Bear Stearns, you have to actually possess a marketable skill to get a paycheck as a nurse.
I work in health care.. coworkers who are making a career shift are more common than those who come out of high school into nursing. That being said, many of the earlier posters are correct in that American nurses more often than not feel exorbitantly entitled and gratuitously self-important.. while at the same time as Dan mentioned they're mostly useless.
Nursing is the growth industry -- that's been the case for many years now.
I'm not gonna bash this one. Sounds like capitalism working the way it's supposed to (an increasingly rare event these days, it seems.) These people are leaving an industry where they were not creating any value, and retraining to enter one where they (hopefully) will. More power to them.
As to whether or not they'll be adequately prepared after an accelerated program - - I'm not qualified to say. I will say, however, that amount of time spent in the classroom has, IMO, little correlation to knowledge acquired. I completed my entire undergraduate program in 18 months, and I know people who've done it in less. OTOH, there was a guy in my graduating class who took 7 years to finish his "4 year" degree, mainly because he was having too much fun living on his parents' money to join the working world.
Wrong the bottom line is to earn money and this group has the back ground to help Corp. do just that. My sister in law runs intensive care with 150 employees and she makes good money but no were near what they made on WS and she does care about the human first. I can't tell you about how many RNs I've met that worked under her that said the best training they ever got was under her and how they wish they were still there. They thought she was crazy only to finally figure out she was right about the world of Care.
jo6pac
A lot of college time is devoted to teaching students to 'think' and very general courses to try to broaden their intelectual horizons. The 15 month course for people with a degree probably is very intense job specific training. Completion of the course shows both aptitude and interest. Much better one of these new RN's than an aide with years of experience and no real training or even interest in anything but the paycheck.
As someone who has had a few different five year careers, why not? Nothing makes them less qualified than when they came out of high school, except physical deterioration. Yea, there are going to be some bad ones but I'm guessing it's going to be a normal distribution. And if the idea of "helping people" lets them get through tough nights- good.
That said, the odds are that they aren't prepared for the realities of the job; the long hours, the irritable patients, condescending doctors, the nasty brutish view of life, etc., but "You got to walk that lonesome valley, you gotta walk it by yourself, oh nobody else can walk it for you, you got to walk it by yourself."
I'm not afraid of being in the care of one of these people if they manage to pass their courses.
Let me add to the comments: I have no idea why I should be any more worried about a focussed, motivated 40-year old ex-finance person with a 15month degree than I would be about the 22-year-old with the 4 year degree, half of which is your standard arts/science stuff which the 40 year old already has.
She's making a change, more power to her. I don't understand the snark in this instance.
Nothing wrong with a career in a medical-related field. As other posters have pointed out, there a lot of different levels of qualification within any particular area. In lab work, for instance, there are MTs with four year degrees and MLTs with two years. In nursing, there are nurses and RNs.
The problem is that many hospital administrators quite literally do not understand the difference; when they decide to cut the budget (which they are always deciding to do, of course) they can easily end up with unqualified airheads working where they should not be. It happens a lot more than you'd think.
I guess there is a great demand for nurses..... especially if they can speak english.
If one can value a complex derivative product correctly..... why not be a brain surgeon instead.... afterall it gives ya a lot of time to improve your golf game. After all, the first doctors in civilization were bitchers and hunters.
I'll stick with being a Master of the Universe with my banking career.
Think you should stick to the business pages Tanta....what would you prefer the next time your in a hospital - no nurse - which essentially means no care, since they're the ones doing all the work, or a nurse w/a 1 1/2 year education in the field??
I could never be a nurse...atleast not in today's context.
Nurses seem busy just pushing paperwork, and waking you up at the oddest hours to draw blood.
And trying to convince you that hmmm-hmmm good soup made from a bullion cube is going to be beneficial.
Give me the real healers---the alternative meds/therapies drs and nurses. They actually show concern and take time to discuss the issues.
Fast forward to Japan, where the birth rate is low, the life expectancy is high, and there are a lot of young people who are blase about the concept of work in general. Even if Japan got its birth rate up, there wouldn't be a place to deliver these babies; consequently, there have been a few cases of women in labor who need to be rushed to a hospital, but are turned away from a number of them (and in at least one case a woman died because of it.) The solution? One solution is to import the nurses from the Philippines! This of course raises the question of whether or not someone who has a crash course in nursing, language, and culture should be deemed qualified to perform the job. Big debate. Stay tuned...
In comparison, a system where the attrited folk from the Japanese megabanks were offered a career in nursing--fast track or otherwise--seems mildly innovative. (Being facetious, of course)
As a new yorker this has me worried. Next time i'm in the hospital I'm going to ask the people attending to me if they used to be in finance. if the doctor says yes i'm out of there.
Better an ex-financier than a relitter!
""Seeing what's happening now, I have no regrets in leaving finance," he said. "People are always going to be sick. We live in an aging society.""
until they start paying nurses and doctors what they do in Russia
If you can set up an SIV, an IV must be a piece o' cake, right?
Hope they don't read the report on Medicare... with a finance background they might actually understand how shaky their new career income stream is.
yes..being a nurse is not a bad business to get into. Maybe 1 day they will offer a 3 month night school course and that will be great
Anonymous writes:
yes..being a nurse is not a bad business to get into. Maybe 1 day they will offer a 3 month night school course and that will be great
Anonymous | 03.26.08 - 5:31 pm | #
That will be for the coveted NBC... Nurse Broker Certification... available to ex-mortgage brokers only.
15 months does seem rather quick, unless they only count the months that are spent in a classroom (4.5 month semesters, 3 month trimesters). In colleges these days, much of freshman & sophomore years are spent satisfying general requirements such as english, humanities, social sciences, art, etc. You don't get into the meat of your major until junior & senior years. By accepting folks who have already gone through the b.s. English 101 courses by having a bachelor of science degree, this 15 month program makes sense.
But is it really the kind of experience that should let you cram nursing school into 15 months?
duh. in business school, they teach you how to optimize your efficiency, so those guys can do stuff in 1/3rd the time it takes normal people.
Imagine yourself an experienced, capable RN, who actually did the four-year thing and knows her way around a little, you know, science, being Charge Nurse for the day and getting one of these new recycled-financiers with the "condensed" degree on her shift.
Guess who's on bedpan duty?
Some of these people might be able to BS their way around a financial institution, but I've known a lot of nurses. My money's on the nurses.
yes, I propose insurance strategies and put options for those who are patients. But at least it is more efficient and adds to GDP.
There are nurses and there are RNs. 15 months is fine for the basic stuff - if they like it, they'll train to be an RN.
But God help us if laid-off quants decide to get work as statisticians at drug companies or the FDA.
But Tanta, don't forget that the 1st 2 years of that four year program, for the 18 & 19 yr. old, are core classes, not nursing classes. So a 15 months cram program for an already college grad, compared to a 20 and 21 yr. old's last 2 yrs. of college, may not be a disadvantage.
"People are always going to be sick. We live in an aging society."
I have seen a quote similar to that before. It went something like this.
"They aren't making any more land. You can't lose if you invest in it today."
Rule of thumb from having worked in a teaching hospital (Risk Management), don't get seriously ill in July...that's when the new doctors start.
Actually, you're right in that the newbies won't be thrown automatically into the highest stress situations. But there's a crying need for good nurses and I'm comfortable that those who take the condensed courses will do alright. If you've ever taken science courses with "older" folks, then you'll see that they're very largely more focused and will adapt well.
What do you think saved Pittsburgh in the late '70s - '80s?
This post reminds of one I saw on the mortgage insider a few weeks ago
UPDATE: No mortgage workers need apply - Mortgage Insider : The Orange County Register
Kind of a broad brush you're painting with.
Don't forget - this is a second bachelors degree, not a master's program.
As far as competing with an already experienced nurse, of course they'll be low man on the totum pole till they earn their stripes.
I don't think they're any less suited to nursing than they were to financial services.
Financial companies absorbed hordes of people who were far more interested in other lines of work, and better at them, too. But as long as it was a machine for printing money, it sucked all the talent out of the applicant pool.
These people are not really in Finance.
Just to be fair... here's the link to the program page:
NYU 15 Month Program
They have to have the basic science completed BEFORE they start the nursing sequence...
Students with a baccalaureate degree in another field who have successfully completed prerequisite courses in nutrition, chemistry, statistics, anatomy and physiology, microbiology, and developmental psychology can enter the College of Nursing, and complete the Bachelor of Science degree program in 15 months of full time study. Students are admitted to the College as undergraduates with the following advanced standing credits: 44 in the liberal arts based on having a bachelors degree and 20 credits in the science and prerequisite requirements that are completed prior to matriculation to the College of Nursing.
Looks reasonable to me... and I'm not a complete moron, was pre-med prior to engineering & worked at the U of Mn Hospitals doing research (worked for the head of the Med School admission committee). Didn't like hospitals so stayed chem engineering w/ biochem emphasis.
Little personal story... I've been in tech for a long time.
I watched the company I was working for outsource over half its staff to India.
Thought the same thing to myself... tough to outsource the medical profession.
I had a BS and an MS already, with quite a bit of the hard sciences, albeit 20 years out of date.
I love academia, just because it builds such a just little world. If you had great grades, nothing else matters.
I applied to a local university. After submitting my application, I realized I'd forgotten some ancient high school accomplishments. Called admissions, officer said "Oh, that doesn't matter. You're accepted."
Accepted within a week. CLEPd out of almost a year of undergrad work right into the second semester of A&P, advanced genetics, all those labs.
Killer coursework, especially for someone holding down a day job. My days would start at 5:15 AM, end after midnight for months on end.
6 credits short of BS in bio, got accepted to a prestigious PA program with almost no question. Admissions officer said they were "looking for students from alternate backgrounds." Meaning, I guess, an old fart from IT.
Going on would've required quitting work and going full time. But I could've been a PA in something like 3 years. I almost did it. Maybe I should've done it.
This person seems like a sincere individual making an admirable career change and life choice. Why are you knocking him/her? Nursing is not rocket science and this person feels that this line of work would give them a better purpose in society.
Before I entered the mortgage business I was a temp at a health insurance company and I worked in their underwriting department. Finance people are saints compared to the wickedness I saw. Underwriters denying people medical treatment in the name of "risk management" and protecting the company's money. But to these underwriters who did not have to look these people in the eye, denying a few lives begging for medical treatment was all part of "risk management". The company rewarded such behavior and the underwriters seemed to have no conscience at all.
So, I guess our next crisis is going to be in the medical industry. I definitely need to start taking better care of myself before medical costs REALLY shoot up (mmmm.... $1,000 for a checkup, I can see it now)...
I am an internist (Just like Dr. House on TV ) at a major hospital system in Texas. I read this article with fascination. What I find perplexing is the fact that in both medicine and nursing - the impetus is already beginning to offshore as much as possible. Already - INDIAN and PAKISTANI doctors are reading X-rays at night - many many pathology slides are being read by foreign doctors over the internet. The medical powers that be have SOOOO miscalculated medical needs in the 1980s and 1990s that we are having to import many many MDs just to meet the demand - especially in the primary care specialties. At many medical meetings today - I can scarcely understand what is being said because the English is so bad.
As for nursing -- they are some of the most overworked underpaid abused people I know - to find a nurse over 40 is very uncommon. The nursing administrators know this - and are actively recruiting nurses by the dozens, scores, and hundreds from all over Africa and the Philippines. I have had the administrators repeatedly tell me they would rather have foreign nurses than Americans - they work for peanuts and do not bitch and moan like Americans do. This is not a recipe for success from these financial dropouts. I am also somewhat concerned about these 15 month programs - the graduates I have seen are ummm - less than desirable. And FYI - on Friday and Saturday night - at any hospital in Dallas - the chance of having a nurse able to speak English on the other end of the phone taking care of critically ill patients is almost non-existent.
This severe lack of qualified people - both medical and nursing - is one of the big crises in medicine today - and are ignorant professional leadership has their head in the sand.
I just wonder how long these huge salaries can continue to be paid to medical doctors - already there are severe signs of stress in the accounts receivable areas - I hear it all the time in the lunchroom. For the most part - the medical community absolutely has it coming - and although part of it - I have been warning for years - and will not be unhappy to see the tsunami on the way. We have failed to police ourselves on so many levels - it is truly frightening if the public knew what was going on.
I am sorry to ramble - I just am concerned that many of these "future" nurses and doctors have no idea what they are in for.
"People are always going to be sick. We live in an aging society."
The question is whether they will have access to enough wealth to pay for treatment.
The Doc is right. I've been an RN for 25 years. You can't start when you're 40, unless your last job was in a dairy farm or a slaughterhouse. You can't become one in 15 months, under any conditions.
Still, I wish them luck.
Kind of a broad brush you're painting with.
It might have something to do with having spent the last several years being treated to the "we're here to help people" line from the subprime lenders.
At enough of a level of generalization, every job or industry involves "helping people." Janitors help people. Undertakers help people. The clerk behind the counter at my local grocery helps me all the time. Either the term means something specific or it doesn't.
I do flinch over this thing about how nursing is just more "helping people." I think it is (or should be) about providing professional medical care. That's certainly "helpful," but why is it these people make it sound like they're answering some long-repressed call to become angels of mercy or something?
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They are leaving an unstable industry for one that looks to have better long-term prospects, and that offers a professional degree. So? So what's wrong with just saying you're going where the reliable money is? Why does it have to be overlaid with this idea that these people "never really fit in" in finance because their "real heart" is in "helping people"?
I preferred the second guy's story, since he seemed a touch more upfront about his motives.
And I love nurses. But I have found few who are given to soppy saccharine rhetoric about what they do.
I am sorry to ramble - I just am concerned that many of these "future" nurses and doctors have no idea what they are in for.
dagan68 | 03.26.08 - 5:59 pm | #
I know EXACTLY what they are in for - 8 hour shifts fighting with insurance companies for their hospital or clinic. They speak both languages.
So, I guess our next crisis is going to be in the medical industry. I definitely need to start taking better care of myself before medical costs REALLY shoot up (mmmm.... $1,000 for a checkup, I can see it now)...
No, no, no... they will all be 'No Cost' just like the closing fees for a refi mortgage...
I work in a medical lab and my wife is a nurse. I have to agree with degan68. The medical field stinks, but really there are few places to run in the outsourced global economy.
FYI, my wife and I make the exact same money we made 15 years ago. Remember 15 years ago when gas was $1 gallon.
I think Mish calls this 'global wage arbitrage.'
I don't know. I think a lot of intelligent people working in financial services have realized that much of the industry no longer provides anything of real value to the economy, the nation, the world, or themselves, other than a paycheck. It's not hard to see that nursing does provide value.
Also, most people starting out in any profession have delusions that real working life will disabuse them of later.
Man, I thought I was a crabby, negative, glass-is-totally-empty kind of person, but I can't hold a candle to some here. Believe it or not, there really are nurses and medical professionals who get some fulfillment from doing what they see as helping people. If a couple of seemingly intelligent Americans want to enter that important profession in part for that reason, more power to them. There are nurses and doctors for whom helping people on a true human-to-human level is distinctly secondary.
Nursing is a profession (like teaching)that seems to be more of a vocation than an occupation. There are a lot of people in the finance industry that will be confronted with the decsion of what to do next. Would you have been less galled if these people were aspiring to become teachers?
I think most of them will wish that they had become teachers. As others pointed out, nursing past the age of 50 is really hard. The work is labor intensive.
The only reason nursing and teaching are seen as "vocations" is that you can then construct them as "women's work" ("caring professions") and pay them less than other occupations that require equivalent skill and effort.
Believe it or not, there really are nurses and medical professionals who get some fulfillment from doing what they see as helping people.
I don't disagree.
I think a lot of people "get some fulfillment from doing what they see as helping people." Nobody wants to be treated by nurses who got into this because they are amused by making people worse.
The financial industry can, in fact, "help people." But only if it chucks its silly rhetoric and gets serious in analyzing what financial moves really do help people, and also about building skill levels and serious codes of conduct. Just wanting to feel all warm and fuzzy about people getting those house keys at the closing has not, in fact, been very "helpful" to anyone except the people who indulge themselves in it.
None of you want to know what I said to the last doctor who told me "I became a doctor so I could help people."
Even Conjure flinched.
OT
US Senate panel chief questions Dimon's Fed seat
U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd on Wednesday expressed concern that JPMorgan Chase & Co Chairman Jamie Dimon held a Federal Reserve Bank of New York board seat while trying to acquire Bear Stearns.
US Senate panel chief questions Dimon's Fed seat
| Reuters
I smell carp.
Anyone have any info on this piece from Wall Street Examiner? I don't have subscription.
New Supply Bearing Down as Treasury Finances Collapse- WSE Pro Fed Report
by Lee Adler, Wednesday, March 26, 2008, in Money and The Fed, Professional Edition | Permalink |Comments (
US Government finances are falling apart. In another mind bending shock today, the Treasury announced yet another surprise CMB auction. This one will raise $26 billion in new cash tomorrow in an action completely unforeseen by the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee. That makes $56 billion in new Treasury borrowing this week that the experts did not foresee less than two months ago. Total new supply will be $78 billion, which will drain cash from the market at issuance on Thursday and Monday. If the Fed does not act aggressively to offset this cash drain, the markets could crack.
My sister (now a PHD Professor in Nursing as well as an RN practitioner for over 20 years) started her nursing career in a post BA program like this. She had the advantage of being an Outward Bound instructor rather than a finance type to start out with, though.
I like nurses. I almost died a couple years ago. I spent a fair amount of time in the hospital as a result. The best nurses were ex-military. My favorite was a Nam vet.
Fairfax Hospital where I live outsources all the X-ray examination. Also all the Dr. transcripts go to India to be typed up. I think one of the X-ray readers is in Australia.
Fairfax (InNova) buys their power in bulk. 3 years ago the man that does it tells me they do a 5 year plan for budget projections. He said they were planning on $4.00 gas before that 5 years were up. Why that tied into MegaKilowatts I don't know.
I thought this was a Finance and Economics blog with an emphasis on RE of all types blog !
Sorry, I have an aversion to things medical and dental - not that I neglect any of the tests appropriate to my age, gender and custom and practice in the USA ( and damned glad I haven't neglected them, btw, and strongly recommend that people do that same ) - but damnit STILL...
CR, next topic PLEASE ! How about this story:
- NY Times
Report Assails Auditor for Work at Failed Home Lender
By VIKAS BAJAJ ( Nice scooter
)
In a sweeping accusation against one of the countrys largest accounting firms, an investigator released a report on Wednesday that said improper and imprudent practices by a once high-flying mortgage company were condoned and enabled by its auditors.
...
KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms, endorsed a move by New Century Financial, a failed mortgage company, to change its accounting practices in a way that allowed the lender to report a profit, rather than a loss, at the height of the housing boom, an independent report commissioned by a division of the Justice Department concluded.
-K
Tanta - you should really stick to what you know. Nurses that are coming out of the 15 month program are just as qualified as any other nurse. And it is very hard to get into these programs and they require a lot of prerequisites - of you know science classes.
And for someone who usually does their homework an RN is essentially like getting an associates degree in nursing. I would venture a guess that most of the RNs in this country do not have a 4 year bachelor degree in nursing.
A few months ago, I quit my job in a trading firm to join Google as a software engineer. I wish I had done it sooner; I'm much happier now. I really don't think I'll move back to Financials now.
I'm also glad that I moved out of the industry right before the collapse. There's going to be a new tide of people looking for jobs soon.
Hey, I'm getting sick just reading this . . . (rimshot)
Five years go I was about to go to nursing school, but chose to get into appraising instead. Needless to say that was a dumb desicion. Now it's between nursing school again and fishing guide. For those considering a career move, take appraising off of your list.
Abbey Cohen would make a fabulous nurse and the rumor on the street is that she has great bedside manners.
I think it's great - these could be the folks who will finally figure out how to outsource direct care. Or they can slice and dice the patients into tranches and then say "whocoodanode?" when they find out the patients don't function quite the same afterwards.
"Accelerated" professional degree or certificate programs are always iffy. You always learn what you need to do to pass the tests and certifications; you don't always learn the job itself.
I went through a 15-month accelerated master's program in education. It made me a master of arts, but not all that great a teacher.
I am sorry to ramble - I just am concerned that many of these "future" nurses and doctors have no idea what they are in for.
My father was a doctor (he died many years ago) and saw this stuff coming in the 1980s. Many of his colleagues told him was crazy back then. When I run into them these days, they tell me "Your father was a very smart man; he was before his time".
He actively discouraged all his children from medicine. Of course, I ended up in academia, which is suffering from many of the cost overruns/mismanagement that the medical profession is.
For those considering a career move, take appraising off of your list.
Where did I get the idea that the appraisal business was doing well with all the bank foreclosures?
Tanta said: "I can pretty much vouch for the fact that having an undergraduate business degree and years of experience in finance qualifies you to give other people heart attacks. But is it really the kind of experience that should let you cram nursing school into 15 months?"
Well, aren't you just the height?
Would this be as funny if it were a factory worker who just lost his job after 20 years, had zero chance of finding another one like it, and had an opportunity to re-train for something else where he could get work?
Sort of departed from the Populist theme here, didn't you?
Ten years ago I had a 40-ish friend in finance at a tech company who decided she'd had enough. She realized that she could be doing the same thing in 10 years or she could be a doctor with her own practice.
Today she's a doctor with her own practice.
I don't think any of these people would appreciate your cheap shots. I know I find them a little offensive.
Sebastia
None of you want to know what I said to the last doctor who told me "I became a doctor so I could help people."
My med school boss who was head of admissions where I was doing research would occasionally read applicants essays to me - anonymously of course - you know, the ones where they said they wanted to 'help people'. He told me those folks rarely went to the top of the selection list.
On the contrary the essays demonstrating a realistic vision of medicine (hard and dirty job though well compensated) & one where the applicant could demonstrate their personal aptitude for those difficult tasks moved pretty high up the list. It was quite an experience seeing the selection process from the inside (somewhat like sausage being made).
I took the requisite accounting courses after I had a BA. That took two additional semesters. There's always sick balance sheets out there.
My father was a doctor (he died many years ago) and saw this stuff coming in the 1980s. Many of his colleagues told him was crazy back then. When I run into them these days, they tell me "Your father was a very smart man; he was before his time".
He actively discouraged all his children from medicine. Of course, I ended up in academia, which is suffering from many of the cost overruns/mismanagement that the medical profession is.
Sounds EXACTLY like my ex-boss... he too discouraged me from going to medical school circa 1980 - unless I liked the idea of working for a large corporation in which case why not do it as an engineer - costs less in tuition & effort. He would then tell me about this thing coming called an 'HMO'... they were already common in the Twin Cities but would go national and soon... in an effort to better 'manage the costs'.
Unbelievable clarity of vision.
Would this be as funny if it were a factory worker who just lost his job after 20 years, had zero chance of finding another one like it, and had an opportunity to re-train for something else where he could get work?
I really don't believe there are very many 20-year veterans of the assembly line who believe they could spend 15 months in an "accelerated" program and voila! become an RN pulling down $70K a year. I'm sure many of them could accomplish that, but I doubt they'd be blithe about it.
It's usually people in certain white collar sectors who have so much endless faith in themselves and their abilities that they never doubt their potential to turn on a dime and go in a new direction. After all, these are the people who spent decades being told that nothing else matters if you "have the right attitude."
Tanta,
Keep in mind that while every medical institution handles their nurses differently, some hospitals require a significant amount of certification as well as continuing education. My wife recently started as a critical care nurse on one of the best ICUs in the US and they put her through significant certification program with extensive objective and difficult testing. At least this particular institution, just because you met the gates to work in the state doesnt mean you met the gates to work in their facility. Nursing involves an extremely broad spectrum of tasks and people who graduate these programs have to do a lot of work before they get to do complicated stuff.
The other factor that is essential for the patient and is at times overlooked by bean counters (because they can not think it such a manner) is bedside manner. That skill requires dealing with people effectively and if not present can negate a recipient's (or the kin of a recipient) ability to think that they are receiving proper medical care. I dare say that skill has little to do with a hard science, and more to do with social science of which there are many paths to take to get there.
The other aspect of this that I find disappointing is that you have unfortunately lumped a profession like nursing with people in finance on this web site which is, in my opinion, neither appropriate nor fair. Nursing is a much regulated profession than anything in finance. There are competency exams and testing, albeit not terribly difficult but a much higher barrier to entry than someone who can say "I can make that deal!"
In addition, you certainly can tell me all about how the steps you took during your career in finance and how it made you better of than the next person in what you did as a person in finance, but you failed to explain credibly why the current shortage in nursing should exclude people who worked in finance and your reasons that the path these people are taking somehow degrades our medical care or is unappropriate as a medical professional. Your assumptions, while logical to you, do not automactically correlate. Leave that to the medical professionals and not Tanta.
Quite frankly, while I would agree with you in principle that someone who spent all their life in nursing will be, in all probability, better at it than someone who hasn't, but we are now in a cycle in the financial world where alot of people who have been doing this all of their lives got it terribly wrong.
Finally, I think that medical providers find themselves constantly self-correcting much more often than most other professions because of their ultimate predator, the trail lawyer. Those company eaters are constantly swimming around it looking to eat someone for medical malpractice. Medical malpractice is much easier to prove than let's say, some shareholder who is claiming they aren't getting maximum performance.
Anyway, I generally think that what you write is extremely informative but in this case I think that you have to do your research first before posting something about another profession that quite frankly, you haven't given a reason as to why you are qualified to talk about it.
Goose
Now it's between nursing school again and fishing guide. For those considering a career move, take appraising off of your list.
CowTools | 03.26.08 - 6:45 pm | #
Shocker just in - dryfly votes for fishing guide... but maybe that's just me.
The other aspect of this that I find disappointing is that you have unfortunately lumped a profession like nursing with people in finance on this web site which is, in my opinion, neither appropriate nor fair.
What?
I know some pretty sweet fishing spots along the snake river...
I can't stand blood so nursing is out of the question.
Nursing is a profession that requires skill and has real accountability for screw ups.
This is in stark contrast to the "professionals" in finance. Given the state of affairs they deserve the disdain they are getting. And if you think this is meanspirited then just wait another 6 months.
As I have aged and had more savings to invest, I have been nothing but stunned at the general level of ignorance of the people working in finance. They know their little thing and that is it. And, of course, their little thing is always great, great great!
No accountability. Pathetic and definitely not professional.
Whocudanoode???
Seb,
I think Tanta was thinking more along the lines of the phebotomist (sp?) who does a bad stick and now your arm is permanently paralized or if not permanently at least doesn't work right and is painfull as hell for a while. Full disclosure: my wife supervised the phebotomists at a childrens hospital and who got a bad stick giving blood.
I watched a poorly trained phebotomist trying to stick my late wife when she was in the hospital and it was not pretty. Tanta is right to question whether 15 months is enough training.
In my line of work, if I made a mistake, we just installed a new part or worse just got out the cutting and welding tools.
Tanta, then explain this comment to me because I don't get it.
"I can pretty much vouch for the fact that having an undergraduate business degree and years of experience in finance qualifies you to give other people heart attacks. But is it really the kind of experience that should let you cram nursing school into 15 months?"
I don't know Tanta, why don't you explain it to me as to why it should not be done? By putting the article under the title of "This ought to keep you up at night:", you are implying that anyone who moves from finance to nursing is an issue, right?
A lot of people seem very confused about what people in financial services actually do.
Do you think a low-level bond analyst or desk trader at Fidelity is responsible for for the actions of Alan Greenspan, Angelo Mozillo or Jamie Dimon?
Retraining is not easy. I used to retrain about every 2 years (IT). I am old and still have to look at yet another major retraining soon. I am very good at what I do but I have been looking at the backgrounds of those hired for comparable positions nationally. I can't compete.
I would be unable to get hired for the position I have now probably. If I was let go I would be soooo screwed.
In IT there used to be a lot of paper "engineers." Not anymore.
It's usually people in certain white collar sectors who have so much endless faith in themselves and their abilities that they never doubt their potential to turn on a dime and go in a new direction.
The acceptability of such midlife career changes is actually one of the great strengths of American society.
In many countries in Europe, the education system decides your life-long career path before you start high school. It's incredibly inefficient and leads to misallocation of human resources.
These people are doing exactly what they should do. As a society, we want them retrained for productive work-- not sitting around lamenting the demise of the financial services industry...
Some great comments in this thread, but not a lot about the more fundamental issue: these kind of mid-life, major career changes are being pushed on more and more people these days thanks to job insecurity, "global wage arbitrage", and various other forces in the economy.
I know economists see this as healthy (people "retraining" for the shift in opportunities), but realistically the number of people who can retrain for a career with any significant training requirement is rather limited, due to the required resources of money and time. After 40, it gets harder still.
In law we're seeing a spike of new lawyers who were Computer Scientists/Engineers in their past lives but decided to abandon the field in the 2001-2003 recession. Of course now there's a shortage of people in technical fields, but the investment in law school certainly made rational sense for the people who abandoned the field at the time... how could they have predicted jobs would be back by 2008 when the whole field was facing offshoring? And will the jobs in computer fields disappear again in this recession?
It boggles my mind the level of job insecurity people are faced with these days. My parents' generation never had to contend with similar levels of uncertainty.
I believe we have to be careful here. Never estimate the ability of a reporter to bait his audience, especially when there's envy and/or racism involved.
That said, it's the lack of maturity and introspection that I find most bothersome in the quotes. These individuals participated in (and profited from) a hugely harmful ponzi scheme and yet there's no expression of awareness or regret.
And these are the people I want monitoring my IV?
Not.
Finance in America has done much to both help and harm people. The general population does not understand banking. Henry Ford said once that if the masses understood banking there would be a revolution by morning.
Any idiot knows that when you have a boom, you will have a bust. Housing boom in the present = housing bust in the future. Just look at the history of our country. A series of boom to bust to boom to bust in never ending cycles. The boom bust cycle is especially pronounced in the Western United States and can be traced back to the Railroads.
There were a lot of people in the mortgage business who should not have been in. But the average American consumer thinks they know it all and has a hostility towards bankers. This kind of populist rhetoric goes back to the frontier days when the American consumer had yet to discover soap. John Q Public still smells bad in my opinion.
Too many red pills will impair your ability to read the note you are signing when you take on the debt.
Nobody held a gun to peoples' heads when they made bad choices. It is time for people to own up to their mistakes.
Cases of abuse do exist but the vast majority of foreclosures are due to people not thinking about the long term consequences of their actions.
This happens in every aspect of life. Ask a teenager why they got pregnant... The answer is that it felt good at the time. Now there is a baby who will be with you for the rest of your life. People are just like that. Quit blaming your mortgage company or whoever for what is a difficult time for many, many people.
One thing I've noticed in my numerous visits to the hospital with my 80+ year old father is that the amount of interaction between nurse and patient is relatively small. The nurse does intake, but after that the primary point of contact is the "patient care assistants" formerly known as nurse's aides. I've observed, and I have heard nurses complain, that most of their work is paperwork.
Ergo the move from finance to nursing may not be that much of a stretch. (SNARK!)
Where did I get the idea that the appraisal business was doing well with all the bank foreclosures?
The appraisal management companies have taken over and will only continue to pilfer the coffers with new GSE appraisal guidelines for 2009. REO appaisals used to be at least $450 and I feel lucky to get $275. I've calculated that the average fee is down about 30% at my company. Plus, I did over a 100 REOs last year and they get very old, real quick, unless you really like filth.
Shocker just in - dryfly votes for fishing guide... but maybe that's just me.
Yes, I reckon if I can unwind this deal in an orderly fashion I could be set-up by salmonflies. I've also applied for some county assessors jobs in sleepy rocky mountain counties.
Tanta writes:
Would this be as funny if it were a factory worker who just lost his job after 20 years, had zero chance of finding another one like it, and had an opportunity to re-train for something else where he could get work?
I really don't believe there are very many 20-year veterans of the assembly line who believe they could spend 15 months in an "accelerated" program and voila! become an RN pulling down $70K a year. I'm sure many of them could accomplish that, but I doubt they'd be blithe about it.
A associates degree requring 72 hours and passing the state RN test is all that is required here. It takes 4 terms.
If someone has already had the English and a complete of the other humanities pre-reqs along with some of the science classes, then it could easily be shortened to 3 terms.
4 terms fit nicely into 15 months: Fall, Srping, Summer and Fall - and they are done.
And yes, they then sit for the RN exam and are RNs.
If they want, they can then transfer and get a BA in nursing.
So it sounds like the 15 month program is pretty normal as it would encompass 4 terms.
I just wonder how long these huge salaries can continue to be paid to medical doctors - already there are severe signs of stress in the accounts receivable areas
Thanks.....
My personal "bubble index" is counting the number of billboards an industry has along a 40 mile stretch of interstate.
In '99 almost half were technology companies (not sure why Sun thought believed that most commuters would be ready customers).
In '06 it was home builders.
Lately, it's all hospitals pumping their maternity wards and other services.
The Doctors may get hit when the bubble bursts but hospitals are going to be burned. Way too many of them and every one of them trying to specialize in one of the money-centers (trauma, cancer, maternity).
This is an interesting thread. I was an EMT for many years. Fun fact about me
So I've work with all sorts of nurses, doctors, and assorted medical personnel in situations of high high high stress and not very pretty medical needs. I have great respect for some nurses and doctors, little for others. Like most professions.
But I'll say something from personal experience. You know that whole "helping people" thing is really not applicable in the way it is presented. Sure, you help people, but I never really thought of it that way. And you really can't think of people as people either or you get all messed up emotionally. It's not a person, it's the blunt force head trauma in 4, or the gunshot wound in 7, or the heart attack in 2. You have to have a little detachment or you burn out hard. The only thing that I never totally detached from was kids. No one likes to see kids messed up.
So that's why I'm with Tanta on the helping people thing.
That said, it's the lack of maturity and introspection that I find most bothersome in the quotes. These individuals participated in (and profited from) a hugely harmful ponzi scheme and yet there's no expression of awareness or regret.
The quotes are almost all regret. And Ponzi scheme? Really? Do you even know what jobs these individuals actually had? Of course you don't.
Really. Save the anger for Tangelo and company.
Also sounds like a lot of the people now going into nursing would have gone into it many many years earlier had there not been a detour into finance.
Speaking as an old fart of 47 who is attempting to make the transition to being a patent lawyer, I wouldn't get too miffed at the individuals involved....
So we have the perfect career change: from insult to injury.
I can see the orthopedics movie now: Broke and Broker.
From the subprime to the ridiculous?
I know I'm jumping in kind of late, but I'll add my 2 cents worth. I love nurses and the nursing profession. I have several relatives who are nurses. It is a very difficult career field, and I take my hat off to anyone who answers the calling to be a nurse.
With that being said, a lot of these "I retrained to be a nurse" articles rub me the wrong way. Just tell everyone to go into a health care field and avoid the issues surrounding the fact that so many of our jobs are being offshored! Everyone in my home state of Michigan, from laid off factory workers to displaced IT workers, is advised to become a nurse or some other sort of medical professional. What if you don't want to be a nurse? What if you hate being around sick people?
Just because there will always be sick people, and the baby-boomers are reaching the age where they will need a lot more medical treatment, doesn't mean people will be able to afford health care. Salaries for many people have been stagnant or declining. Fewer employers are offering paid health insurance coverage. Those lucky enough to have employer-sponsored coverage are required to pay for higher percentages of their premiums and are faced with much higher deductibles. Hardly any employer pays for post-retirement health care. Has anyone checked out the cost of private health insurance lately? Hospitals are still building new facilities and expanding existing ones at astonishing rates. I can just see a huge bubble bursting in the health care industry.
""I was never happy in my life in finance," said Sadowsky, 39, a former liaison for institutional investors and money managers at Citibank and Invesco"
In a less politically correct world this woman would have been called a secretary. Whether she will or will not make a good nurse is certainly a great unknown, but I don't really see the point in trying to bash her change of career. As someone upthread posited it looks like there are very few people here who actually have a clue about what people in finance actually do and why it exists at all.
Just as an aside, one of my partners has a Phd. in biostatistics and has done quite a bit of work in both basic research and clinical drug trials. So for those of you worrying that unemployed quants might find their way into doing stats for a drug trial you are correct that it could happen but probably wrong to worry.
I don't know what the big deal is on this nursing thing. It's no different than the computer field, where a know nothing can become a full fledged, highly paid network engineer in a weekend.
Besides, soon we will be able to book a vacation with gall bladder surgery. The insurers will charter a plane to send us overseas for health care. Haven't you all been reading the news? Outsource the patient, and get rid of all the extra doctors that won't be needed any more. Free market beats Hillary care any day. Right?
My wife is a nurse with a 4 year degree. The last 2 years of the degree are nursing related, the first two have pre reqs like chemistry, biology and anatomy. If your nurse doesn't have BSN written on her badge, she may not have a 4 year degree, depending on the hospital badging policy.
Most nurses do not have a 4 year degree. You can become an RN with a 2 year junior college degree. This is the most common level of education for new nurses today - I believe. A bunch of nurses over 50 became nurses by getting some 6 month certificate way back when.
15 months seems a little short, but smart people with any degree who pick up the additional 15 months may be better than a number of existing nurses. Many of them don't go the extra mile or try to understand what is going on with the patient, they just hand out drugs and do the bare minimum. If the ones with some intellect and curiousity apply themselves they will be better than those who just see it as a job.
What's really disconcerting here is that nursing is one of the biggest growth areas for the job market.
But who really pays for health care? The government.
I don't know why so many people are piling on regarding two people's choice for a career change. Everyone involved benefit when people enjoy their work. And, this helps to preserve a few spaces for those who LOVE their jobs in finance but otherwise would have been "displaced."
I just left medicine after 6 years of working in a Level II trauma center.
Nursing is not that hard -- anyone that can earn a 4 year degree in anything can become an RN. Skills are also not hard, it takes about 2 hours to learn to do IVs (granted a year or two of practice to become very proficient and ultimately the best seem to be genetically gifted). Nursing does not require huge amounts of expertise. ICU/NICU nurses are very knowledgeable, most other nurses are clueless (my experience is that about 1 in 20 floor/ward nurses are "very knowledgeable"). Take a poll of nurses and they will tell you that nurses with 2-year degrees are MORE capable than 4 year nurses (admittedly there is probably bias in that more nurses are 2 year versus 4). Nursing is a skills job, not a thinking job (that is, you have to do drug calculations, but you are not deciding what drug to give) so 4 year nurses come out with a bunch of useless theories whereas 2-year nurses are given the bootcamp treatment on what they need to get the job done when they hit the floor.
The most funny thing was how nurses and techs would tell me that I had to become a doctor and the doctors would tell me to get out of medicine because it's a racket.
The docs were right, I left to become an analyst and couldn't be happier. A nurse or tech at a hospital is a cog in a wheel. Even in my role as an analyst I have 10x the autonomy that I did in the hospital -- far more opportunity to use my brain (esp. creativity which, as you can imagine, has zero value in medicine), etc.
I really don't believe there are very many 20-year veterans of the assembly line who believe they could spend 15 months in an "accelerated" program and voila! become an RN pulling down $70K a year.
Do nurses make $70K a year to start? I feel like I don't know anything.
So instead of a country where we make each other mortgage loans we will have a country where we give each other sponge baths?
Dryfly, are you the only person in this country still involved in manufacturing?
Dryfly, are you the only person in this country still involved in manufacturing?
Journeyman | 03.26.08 - 10:15 pm | #
No I know one other guy in St. Mary's Pennsylvania still at it too...
Do nurses make $70K a year to start? I feel like I don't know anything.
calvert | 03.26.08 - 10:05 pm | #
Depends on where you are & your cert level... to start as a plain vanilla RN it would be hard to get $70K most places. But an experienced BSN in a major metro area could do that or better. My soon-to-be son-in-law's sister is a BSN in Manhattan & does over $100K... but all that gets her is a tiny shitty apartment. She is considering taking a job at Mayo in rural SE Minnesota for half of that but she could buy a house there on that income (and still fall under the 3:1 income rule).
It just depends on skill & location.
david_in_ct
Great points. Sadowsky is a poster-child for "title-inflation" in the financial services industry. I'm only surprised she wasn't also VP of somethingorother.
Whoever commented that ex-quants 'might' find work in big pharma - oh, was that rich. If he had any idea of the current labcoat-to-stat-modeler boffin ratio, he'd be calling his congressman, demanding a massive FDA investigation.
Nurses are lucky to pull 42k to start.
I sincerely hope more finance people are capable of PASSING nursing classes and achieve certification. It's not a slam dunk -- unlike being a mortgage broker or a risk manager at Bear Stearns, you have to actually possess a marketable skill to get a paycheck as a nurse.
I work in health care.. coworkers who are making a career shift are more common than those who come out of high school into nursing. That being said, many of the earlier posters are correct in that American nurses more often than not feel exorbitantly entitled and gratuitously self-important.. while at the same time as Dan mentioned they're mostly useless.
Nursing is the growth industry -- that's been the case for many years now.
I'm not gonna bash this one. Sounds like capitalism working the way it's supposed to (an increasingly rare event these days, it seems.) These people are leaving an industry where they were not creating any value, and retraining to enter one where they (hopefully) will. More power to them.
As to whether or not they'll be adequately prepared after an accelerated program - - I'm not qualified to say. I will say, however, that amount of time spent in the classroom has, IMO, little correlation to knowledge acquired. I completed my entire undergraduate program in 18 months, and I know people who've done it in less. OTOH, there was a guy in my graduating class who took 7 years to finish his "4 year" degree, mainly because he was having too much fun living on his parents' money to join the working world.
Wrong the bottom line is to earn money and this group has the back ground to help Corp. do just that. My sister in law runs intensive care with 150 employees and she makes good money but no were near what they made on WS and she does care about the human first. I can't tell you about how many RNs I've met that worked under her that said the best training they ever got was under her and how they wish they were still there. They thought she was crazy only to finally figure out she was right about the world of Care.
jo6pac
A lot of college time is devoted to teaching students to 'think' and very general courses to try to broaden their intelectual horizons. The 15 month course for people with a degree probably is very intense job specific training. Completion of the course shows both aptitude and interest. Much better one of these new RN's than an aide with years of experience and no real training or even interest in anything but the paycheck.
As someone who has had a few different five year careers, why not? Nothing makes them less qualified than when they came out of high school, except physical deterioration. Yea, there are going to be some bad ones but I'm guessing it's going to be a normal distribution. And if the idea of "helping people" lets them get through tough nights- good.
That said, the odds are that they aren't prepared for the realities of the job; the long hours, the irritable patients, condescending doctors, the nasty brutish view of life, etc., but "You got to walk that lonesome valley, you gotta walk it by yourself, oh nobody else can walk it for you, you got to walk it by yourself."
I'm not afraid of being in the care of one of these people if they manage to pass their courses.
Let me add to the comments: I have no idea why I should be any more worried about a focussed, motivated 40-year old ex-finance person with a 15month degree than I would be about the 22-year-old with the 4 year degree, half of which is your standard arts/science stuff which the 40 year old already has.
She's making a change, more power to her. I don't understand the snark in this instance.
Nothing wrong with a career in a medical-related field. As other posters have pointed out, there a lot of different levels of qualification within any particular area. In lab work, for instance, there are MTs with four year degrees and MLTs with two years. In nursing, there are nurses and RNs.
The problem is that many hospital administrators quite literally do not understand the difference; when they decide to cut the budget (which they are always deciding to do, of course) they can easily end up with unqualified airheads working where they should not be. It happens a lot more than you'd think.
I guess there is a great demand for nurses..... especially if they can speak english.
If one can value a complex derivative product correctly..... why not be a brain surgeon instead.... afterall it gives ya a lot of time to improve your golf game. After all, the first doctors in civilization were bitchers and hunters.
I'll stick with being a Master of the Universe with my banking career.
Think you should stick to the business pages Tanta....what would you prefer the next time your in a hospital - no nurse - which essentially means no care, since they're the ones doing all the work, or a nurse w/a 1 1/2 year education in the field??
Let me know.
I could never be a nurse...atleast not in today's context.
Nurses seem busy just pushing paperwork, and waking you up at the oddest hours to draw blood.
And trying to convince you that hmmm-hmmm good soup made from a bullion cube is going to be beneficial.
Give me the real healers---the alternative meds/therapies drs and nurses. They actually show concern and take time to discuss the issues.
Fast forward to Japan, where the birth rate is low, the life expectancy is high, and there are a lot of young people who are blase about the concept of work in general. Even if Japan got its birth rate up, there wouldn't be a place to deliver these babies; consequently, there have been a few cases of women in labor who need to be rushed to a hospital, but are turned away from a number of them (and in at least one case a woman died because of it.) The solution? One solution is to import the nurses from the Philippines! This of course raises the question of whether or not someone who has a crash course in nursing, language, and culture should be deemed qualified to perform the job. Big debate. Stay tuned...
In comparison, a system where the attrited folk from the Japanese megabanks were offered a career in nursing--fast track or otherwise--seems mildly innovative. (Being facetious, of course)
Scary: puts me in mind of King's Misery.
But I do like the idea of these swine changing bedpans. Call it poetic justice.