Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Listen Up

After receiving approval to run our impromptu poll on our site from our institutional review board, and after thorough statistical analysis, we have discovered, WOW, that nurses and doctors are terribly unhappy at with their respective professions. I give you the results of the MDOD poll... "Are Providers Quitting?".

Out of 123 respondents 10% are planning to quit when they can afford it, 14% are quitting now, 45% can not afford to quit, 6% are dropping their hospital privileges, and a whopping 30% appear to be in for the long haul. That makes 70% unhappy providers.

So what? So we are not easily replaced. So, unlike flipping burgers, it is really sometimes a life and death thing when you need a physician or skilled nurse. A bad one can kill you, so it's, well, it's kind of important that we actually like what we do. As to the reasons for these results, please read the rest of the blog.

10 comments:

  1. Yeah, but happy providers don't read MDOD! They're busy petting kittens and talking colleagues out of drinking binges/suicide/another box of Dove bars.

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  2. I am considering becoming a nuclear medicine technologist. I bugged the crap out of the guy who gave me my radioactive pills because I asked him about a million questions about how everything worked. It completely fascinated me. Would that job suck too?

    My youngest is starting Kindergarten not this school year but next and I would have some time to go back to school. I could start now in the evenings and take one class at a time if I wanted to. I don't want to work hard and then hate the job though. I don't NEED to work, I could stay home forever and mooch off my husband, but I think it would be nice/rewarding to do something I enjoy eventually. What do you think?

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  3. do it radgirl. then you would be radgirl radgirl like major major major major in catch-22. i think it's a fine job and you could set your schedule. of course, i think you should go into medicine so this would be my second choice, but, in considering the current climate, go become radgirl radgirl.

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  4. Radgirl: I went back to school when my youngest was in kindergarten too. Great idea! We can both be totally overeducated for our jobs!!

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  5. Radgirl -
    I am a cardiology NP who works 3 days a week in nuclear medicine supervising stress tests. If I was contemplating a career change, I would DEFINITELY consider nuc med. Actually if I could work there full time 5 days a week I'd be much happier.
    Where I work it is a small department, we all get along fabulously and there is great camraderie. Last year I hosted the nuc med X-mas party at my home; had a pot luck, drank some good wine, played cards and had a blast. There is probably close to a 25 year age range between us all - with me being nearer the top of the range.
    I think that if you find a good match with where you work then it is a great career choice. 911 has my personal email (if he did not delete it), feel free to get my email from him and I can give you more scoop re: my experiences in nuc med.
    BTW, a few years ago there was a huge demand for technologists, then there apparently was a boon in training programs and now the demand is not quite so high. My guess is that there are regional differences. We have NM students rotating thru where I work. Last year's student got a job at a plush private cardiology office and she was hired on as a NEW GRAD at $75K (this is in the SF bay area in CA) and was promised an increase in salary approaching 100K if she met productivity goals. My jaw dropped when I heard that salary!

    CardioNP

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  6. I think its a grass looks greener thing. I remember my days as a Gigolo, sure it was nice having 40 yr old MILFs buy me drinks but after a while its just a Job.

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  7. frank,

    disagree a bit. certainly there is a grass is always greener thing with almost everything in life. that being said, i would really love to be in EM, but am leaving for something that will be boring.

    i would say that the grass is greeener pehenomenon is not operative here for a more obvious reason.

    i think what we are mostly pissed about is having our salaries tied to the whims of the fed. govt and insurance co's.

    other professionals in a true market system... NFL football for instance, are actually treateed like adults though they are often most assuredly not.

    they can negotiate contracts based on specific measures of performance and, most of the time, get paid at least what they are worth. that's the market.

    on the other side, they are worth this much because they make AT LEAST this much for the team owner.

    so yeah, randy moss can be a jerk, and pac-man jones can salt away his millions (which will be gone a year or two after he quits football), but these roided up athletes are appreciated for their skills and i kinda think that football NFL players have skills that are more unique than mine, but not orders of magnitude more unique.

    they are treated like kings, i am treated like a cog.

    i think we did this difficutl professions for many different reasons but i don't think many in my generation had any idea that we would be relegated to 'cog' status. that would have made my decision easy to go to b school. then i could have been a well rested cog or even a cog director.

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  8. It's alarming and I hope things change for the better.

    We need you! :)

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  9. Interesting how almost half of the medical workers would presumably want to quit, but can't afford to do so.
    If our system ran like those in other countries where the government paid for medical education, the US would be in a world of hurt for medical providers right now.
    As it stands, much healthcare is provided not because professionals want to, but because they have to.

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  10. Don't put down burger flipping. Think of how important the job is.

    Which word to stress? Do YOU want fries with that. DO you want fries with that? Do you WANT fries with that? . . . All of that enunciation and preparation defeated by a low tech sound system. Augh!

    People don't understand how far from a free market economy we are. We want the government to control quality and availability, algorithms to prevent independent decision making by doctors, lawyers to win the lottery for us, and we want to be cured instantly for free, or a small copay. When you are being regulated by unrealistic morons (as opposed to the realistic morons) it is kind of expected that things will not be ideal.

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