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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Nurses are not underpaid.  My DIL earns 120K 1.5 years out of college

Teachers - because the job is simple.[/quote]

Where does your DIL live? What type of nursing does she do? Is she a nurse practitioner with a master's or doctorate degree? Unless she's a travel nurse (and travel RN's aren't typically that close to being out of school) or in management (again, not typical for a nurse who's a relatively recent graduate) I find it hard to believe she's making that much money only 1.5 years after getting her BSN. I'm an RN with a BSN and have been a nurse for 18 years. Right now I'm bedside hospital nursing (I've worked in a number of different areas of nursing-I like variety) and I'm making a base salary of $50 per hour for 36 hours per week which is $93,600 per year if I work three 12.5 hour shifts (we don't get paid for lunch) per week over a 1 year period. However, if the patient census is low or if they've overstaffed for that shift my shift could be cancelled meaning that I won't work and therefore either won't get paid for that day or they'll deduct my PTO. It's an hourly (not a salaried) position. If I'm stuck in traffic and get there 30 minutes late I don't get paid for that time, etc.

On a totally different note, nursing and teaching are unfortunately professions that often don't get the respect that they deserve. I'm not even talking about salary-I'm talking about general respect. I think people who haven't done either tend to think they are easier jobs than they really are. There seems to be a big misconception that nurses simply follow physician's orders and clean patients. Nursing involves a lot of critical thinking. It takes a long time to really know what you are doing as a nurse and the stakes are high. Of course like any profession there are good nurses and lousy nurses. Still, there are much easier, lower stress ways to make a living. I would not become a nurse if I could do it all over again. I'm not complaining about my salary (which I think is fine)-I just wish that I had a job making the same salary doing something less stressful in a different field with a regular Monday-Friday schedule. I'm 41 and don't want to return to school to change careers (My oldest will be college aged in 10 years and we need to be saving money for our kids' educations versus paying for me to go back) but I would tell my younger self to find another career. [/quote]

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