Nurses who've left the profession say these jobs often provide higher satisfaction without the physical and emotional drains. As managed care took hold in the 1990s, four out of 10 hospitals cut costs by targeting experienced nurses for layoffs, often replacing them with cheaper, unlicensed workers known as aides. It's all manual labor. You can't replace a nurse with a machine. There is no machine to wipe people's backsides.
Nursing also wreaks havoc with arranging childcare.
Add to that the associated risks, including exposure to infectious diseases, severe latex allergies, back injuries and increased violence on the job, and it's no wonder the profession is in crisis. Feelings of being under-appreciated and underpaid compound the problem. Between 1994 and 1997, nurses' salaries rose at a rate of just under 2.2 percent annually. Adjusting for inflation, that equals a drop of 1.5 percent each year. The normal 12-hour shift frequently gets stretched to 16 hours and beyond because there is no one to relieve the nurse.