Nursing Is the Surefire New Path to American Prosperity

[Ernie]

https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/nursin ... _permalink

Read and discuss.

[Anthony]

Not a good sign, increasing amounts of automation and the new hot jobs are low barrier to entry and still have potential to be automated. Thinking all jobs might be gone in ~30 years.

[JohnH]

Nursing will be replaced by cheaper jobs done by less skilled people. The government is going to want to slash how much it spends on medical care.

Likewise, hospitals are very busy trying to get H1B and opt visas for nurses. Like any other middle class profession, there is a heavy drive to replace American workers with immigrants who will work for less money.

I would not go into debt to get a nursing degree.

[QuietlyListening]

Many jobs in the hospital that nurses used to do are now done by 'technicians' who are trained but not for long. Giving meds, wound care and other things. As a nurse on the floor you are responsible for what they do- if they mess us your license is on the line- or at least it was when I was in the hospital working. Hospitals are known to understaff with nurses and so burnout is high.

Many places will pay for you to get educated- so you wouldn't have to go into debt. It depends on if they have too many nurses or too few and it ebbs and flows all the time. Plus as I was told years ago- nurses cost an institution- they don't generate income like other jobs.

Nursing is nothing like it used to be- some of the changes are great, some not so great- like everything else in life.

But there are also nurses in home care, hospice, nursing homes etc. So you don't have to work in a hospital. And pay depends on where you work and how hard up they are for nurses.

[QuietlyListening]

And CRNPs are filling in for the lack of primary care doctors in many areas especially rural areas or helping the specialists out.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Many jobs in the hospital that nurses used to do are now done by 'technicians' who are trained but not for long. Giving meds, wound care and other things. As a nurse on the floor you are responsible for what they do- if they mess us your license is on the line- or at least it was when I was in the hospital working. Hospitals are known to understaff with nurses and so burnout is high.

Many places will pay for you to get educated- so you wouldn't have to go into debt. It depends on if they have too many nurses or too few and it ebbs and flows all the time. Plus as I was told years ago- nurses cost an institution- they don't generate income like other jobs.

Nursing is nothing like it used to be- some of the changes are great, some not so great- like everything else in life.

But there are also nurses in home care, hospice, nursing homes etc. So you don't have to work in a hospital. And pay depends on where you work and how hard up they are for nurses.

I've heard administrators say that nurses cost a hospital money. I cringe when I hear it. Nothing could be further from the truth. What nurses do are the product you sell. None of the product you sell works without nurses, you could perhaps even get by without physicians for a much longer time than you could get by without nurses. They are the glue that holds the place together. You are being reimbursed for what nurses do, it may not show up as a separate line item, and may be buried in the room charge, but nonetheless nurses are a profit center, they may look like a cost center, but they are a profit center.

In addition, there are nursing roles that are completely detached from the hospital. Public health (My wife), infusion, even school and community health nursing. These are highly unlikely to be replaceable by machines or by untrained or poorly trained personnel. Just too much is it stake. They're even nurses that serve insurance companies and hospitals in utilization review and reimbursement review decisions.

Please don't forget about other bachelor degree prepared areas of health. I'm thinking about diagnostic imaging, some medical laboratory work, microbiology, and some of the IT roles within a hospital that also require medical terminology, as well as IT skills. These roles are frequently extremely difficult to fill. I was in one of them, and I never wanted for a job my entire life. It is highly unlikely they will be able to automate these out of existence or reduce the skill level will necessary, because the minute they automate or make one part able to pass to a lower skill level, more and more sophisticated instruments, techniques, and skills have come into being. It will be a never-ending chain.

AI is more likely to replace the physicians we work for, then it is to replace us.