Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1152989
t m c » p u l s e | a u g u s t 2 0 1 9 32 "With a nursing background, you can go to work for a biomedical company, a pharmaceutical com- pany, Blue Cross and Blue Shield. You can become a hospital admin- istrator. There are so many options for nurses other than taking care of patients at the bedside," Stokes said. But the bedside is still where nurses start. When nurses talk about "the trenches" they're talking about bedside care. "I truly believe bedside nurses who are working with patients who are admitted to the hospital have the hardest job," Robinson said. "You are pulled in so many different direc- tions—lots of coordination of care. You have five patients and you prob- ably have five different physicians to deal with. … The family members have questions. The doctors want the reports from the night before." Keeping nurses at the bed- side has become a challenge. Increasingly, the front lines of nursing have become a checkpoint on the way to someplace else. "The new generation likes to have a lot of change and varied opportunities," said Becky Sam, a nurse manager of pediatric and con- genital heart surgery at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth who works at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital. "I see a lot of people leaving the bedside, some of them having families, a lot of them going to school to become nurse practitioners." The potential for higher salaries is a major reason for the shift away from bedside care. "Bedside people are really talented," Stokes said. "But nurses are figuring out, If I can put my life on hold for two years and go back to school to become a nurse practitioner, I can go from a salary of $75,000 to $150,000. Nurses going on to become neonatal nurse practitioners or geriatric nurse practitioners are creating a deficit at the bedside of a talent pool that is already limited." Bedside work also can be gru- eling. Handling patients can cause musculoskeletal injuries, Zolnierek said, including Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, tendonitis and bursitis. "Those things affect a nurse's quality of life and well-being," she said. A trusted, stable profession For 17 years in succession, nurses have topped the annual Gallup poll that ranks ethics and honesty in the workplace, making nursing the most trusted profession. Many nurses—along with teach- ers and preachers—use the words "vocation" and "mission" when describing their relationship to the job. "I tell my kids, if you can love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life," said Robinson, whose blinged-out lanyard and whimsically- decorated headbands help commu- nicate her enthusiasm to patients. "Nursing isn't work to me. It's a gift, every single day." For one part of the student popu- lation, nursing is a lifelong goal, said Ainslie Nibert, Ph.D., associate dean of the Texas Woman's University nursing program in Houston. The other part of the student population is drawn to the security of the profession. "When you've had economic upheavals—the financial crash of 2008, the energy industry cycle through its ups and downs—we'll see folks who recognize that people need health care in both boom and bust years. It is a stable industry," Nibert said. Becky Sam, right, a nurse manager of pediatric and congenital heart surgery at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, works at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital. Cindy Zolnierek, Ph.D., left, is CEO of the Texas Nurses Association. Credit: Lifetouch Inc.