Overpaid nurses

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Taurus

Paul Revere of Medicine
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Get a load of this.

The highest paid municipal worker in San Francisco is a nurse. How much? $350,324. Yet I keep hearing nurses whining about their low salaries. For the time they spend in school and the difficulty of their schooling, nursing is hard to beat.

Citywide rank (total pay) 1
Employee name CHRISTIAN KITCHIN
Title SPECIAL NURSE
Department DPH-Community Health Network
Regular pay $117,262
Overtime pay $216,277
Other pay $16,785
Total pay $350,324​

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I assure you I don't make anywhere near that. It's pretty absurd to look at the salary of one nurse in San Fransisco and conclude that all nurses are overpaid. In addition, you don't know the exact role this nurse plays in the dept of public health. S/he could possibly be a director or specialist, and in a high COLA $117K is not that outrageous. Finally, the vast majority of that salary is overtime. This person was not paid $350K for working 40 hours per week. Seriously Taurus, you are capable of logic. Please use it.
 
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Second Farmer Jane.
The position you posted (Taurus) looks like a bureaucrat who happens to be a nurse. Hardly enough to extrapolate a whole overpaid profession.
Pffft.

I assure you I don't make anywhere near that. It's pretty absurd to look at the salary of one nurse in San Fransisco and conclude that all nurses are overpaid. Seriously Taurus, you are capable of logic. Please use it.
 
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It's a public health department, so my best guess would be clinical nurse specialist in community health. If there's an open position and one CNS is covering for two positions, that would explain all the overtime.
 
Get a load of this.

The highest paid municipal worker in San Francisco is a nurse. How much? $350,324. Yet I keep hearing nurses whining about their low salaries. For the time they spend in school and the difficulty of their schooling, nursing is hard to beat.

Citywide rank (total pay) 1
Employee name CHRISTIAN KITCHIN
Title SPECIAL NURSE
Department DPH-Community Health Network
Regular pay $117,262
Overtime pay $216,277
Other pay $16,785
Total pay $350,324​

Are you a future MD?
 
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2008/03/8000_sf_employees_take_home_ov.php

At the very top, with $350,324 is Christian Kitchin, a Special Nurse with the DPH-Community Health Network. Kitchin is a county jail nurse and his base pay is $117,262. He made $216,277 in overtime and $16,785 in "other pay", which is classified as "compensation for special working conditions or one-time pay-outs of unused vacation and sick leave to employees leaving the city."
 
my girlfriend is an rn, has been out of nursing school for a bit over 2 years. she made over 100k last year. not overpaid, but not too shabby either.
 
how's that overtime work out? cause if it's only time and a half, then he's working an additional 50 hours/week and probably deserves the money for workin 90 hour weeks.
 
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Yes thank you for explaining the pay, AND resolving this stupid issue.
 
If a regular RN is pulling 117k, the docs working there should be making at least 200k.

Given that its a county facility, I seriously doubt they pay their IM docs 200k at this facility. Perhaps somebody can prove me wrong
 
If a regular RN is pulling 117k, the docs working there should be making at least 200k.

Given that its a county facility, I seriously doubt they pay their IM docs 200k at this facility. Perhaps somebody can prove me wrong
Max they have listed for a physician is $83 per hour. Not sure if you can exceed that with time. On the other hand CRNAs make $96 per hour:
http://dphwww.sfdph.org/emplymnt/GenlJobs.htm#200Class

David Carpenter, PA-C
 
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Let's come with ways to reduce these inflated salaries. Medicare is going broke after all. The country can't afford to being paying nurses $350k!
 
Yep---sometimes nurses can be so stooopid...:D



Seriously, for the big picture conversation, please remember that although we in the SF area are certainly well compensated,(Ironically, still not enough to keep many nurses at the bedside but that's a whole other issue...)
Do know that much of the rest of the country IS grossly underpaid. I mean really. It's just gross.

For the one of you who maybe didn't know that.
 
Exactly. This country isn't paying nurses $350K.

And if it is, why in the world am I driving a thirteen year old car??
 
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mn_city_pay_graphic.jpg
 
Please tell me those "assistant medical examiners" are actually MDs. :rolleyes:
 
With all this exposure, I doubt that a nurse will be the top earner next year. :D The SF police dept needs to investigate this character. Me smells fraud too.
 
Apparently because you aren't working for the state of California.

Honestly, you have to admit that 350k for a jail nurse is a pretty ridiculous salary. And so is earning double your regular pay in overtime. If we assume this person has a 40hr/wk job, he/she is working roughly 60hrs/wk extra. You know anyone other than sucker interns like me who do a 100hrs/wk every week all year?

Methinks a bit of fraud is occurring here.
Technically its only 49 hours a week (assuming no vacation). Not too different from some programs that are "staying under" the 80 hour work week. You really can't blame the nurse. Its the system that allowed it to happen. The base salary of $56/hr isn't all that unusual for the bay area from what I hear. Its the 2500+ hours of overtime that is. If shes really smart her retirement is based on her last year of pay and shes retiring. Not an uncommon situation for some of the police in various agencies.

David Carpenter, PA-C
 
Assuming an ADN... $175,162 for each year of school. That means the doctors should be getting paid at least $1,401,296 not counting residency, IMO :).
 
Supply and demand, boys and girls - supply and demand. Nothing more.
 
Supply and demand, boys and girls - supply and demand. Nothing more.

While the nursing salaries in the Bay area represent supply and demand to some extent, there are a number of other factors here. Supply and demand does not explain one person working the equivalent of another job and a half worth of overtime. This is probably better explained by either managerial incompetence or arcane rulemaking that allows someone to work the equivalent of several jobs. Also the California staffing rules are a long way from pure supply and demand. This is unlikely to happen in any corporate environment. You get true inefficiency (the opposite of supply and demand) in a government environment.

David Carpenter, PA-C
 
JWk,

You are right supply and demand. We are experiencing severe nursing shortage and honestly, the pay nurses are getting today does not counter the aggravation they experience on a daily basis.
 
I've heard two reasons why there is a nursing shortage.

The first being that there simply aren't enough seats in nursing schools to accommodate all the students who wish to become nurses.

The second being that nurses are overworked and underpaid and therefore are not working as RNs. There are enough RNs to cover the shortage, but aren't working in their field.

Is it one or the other? A little of both? Another reason?
 
I've heard two reasons why there is a nursing shortage.

The first being that there simply aren't enough seats in nursing schools to accommodate all the students who wish to become nurses.

The second being that nurses are overworked and underpaid and therefore are not working as RNs. There are enough RNs to cover the shortage, but aren't working in their field.

Is it one or the other? A little of both? Another reason?

I've also read that there aren't enough nursing instructors d/t the fact that a floor nurse can make more than a professor.
 
There is now and has for a long time been a shortage of nursing faculty; it's hard to go into teaching when a nurse can make so much more as a nurse. There are, however, significant incentives to recruit experienced nurses into teaching, such that my sister (RN) will likely have her Ph.D. nursing paid for if she goes into nursing ed. (UA-Tucson)
L.

I've heard two reasons why there is a nursing shortage.

The first being that there simply aren't enough seats in nursing schools to accommodate all the students who wish to become nurses.

The second being that nurses are overworked and underpaid and therefore are not working as RNs. There are enough RNs to cover the shortage, but aren't working in their field.

Is it one or the other? A little of both? Another reason?
 
JWk,

You are right supply and demand. We are experiencing severe nursing shortage and honestly, the pay nurses are getting today does not counter the aggravation they experience on a daily basis.

No offense (and not that i begrudge anyone their income) but I know guys working in oil fields with twice the hours, twice the rate of injuries and with barely the same level of pay. I know Police officers who barely make $40k for 50-60 hours/week who've been shot at and don't complain as much as some of the nurses I know about pay. Hell, an E2 Army Private in Downtown Baghdad makes less than 20k/year. for a 2-3 year program, nurses make damn good money.
 
Agreed. With the collapse of the auto unions, there is no other job in the country that makes that level of pay with extreme flexibility in hours after only a two-year degree.
Agreed. Pay cannot be too much for nurses with all the frustration and disrespect that go with it.
 
You also have to factor in level of responsibility. How many other people with "only a two year degree" hold other people's lives in their hands? It really can't be compared to a two year degree in, say, marketing.
 
Call me a sarcastic B*tch...but everytime I hear a doctor complain about my $24.50/hr, which I increase by volunteering to work night shift and weekends, sometimes I just want to smile sweetly and say "you know, it's never too late for you to go to Nursing School, and then in 2-3 years you can accomplish all that I have."

I'll stand up and say that I don't think Residents/Interns don't make crap for all that they do. But the majority of nurses work hard for every penny. Yeah there are always lazy nurses who suck, but there are lazy people who suck in every field, I could tell you about a few doctors I know.
 
The solution to overpaid nurses is simple. Open more nursing schools. Increase supply and prices will drop. Has the medical groups ever thought of creating a new group of professionals who could be hired interchangeably with nurses and yet fall under the board of medicine? I'm all for that.
 
They not complaining about your $24.50/hr.

They're complaining about my ex-girlfriends who made $46.00 base pay, and since they were signed on with a travel company, had all their housing and rental car paid for, then came in to every shift so hung over they could barely stand up.

They're complaining about my wife who cleared 80k a year base pay with zero overtime, then still went on strike because the 6% annual raise for the next three years just wasn't enough, it had to at least be 10%. Of course the hospital went belly up shortly thereafter.

But mainly, they're complaining about nurse2b2009, who believes that no matter how much nurses make, it is never enough. They're complaining about the fact that even though hospitals are closing, patients face increasing copays and difficulty getting insurance, physician reimbursements are being slahsed year after year, and hospital staff are being cut the bone, the solution of the ANA continues to be "pay nurses more" and shut down hospitals with strikes "for the good patients".

The problem is sometimes strikes are necessary and they aren't always about money. When you have hospitals that force staff to work mandatory overtime and staff their units with unsafe patient ratios, then when good faith negotiations fail to yield results striking may be the only option. Hospitals are given more than fair warning--strikes don't happen at a moment's notice. It's amazing how much money they're able to come up with to pay strike-breakers to staff their units--money that wasn't there for their own nurses. I've gotten offers from travel agencies to work strikes; I have not and I will not, ever. There's no amount of money that is worth betraying my colleagues.

I don't think I should be raking in piles of money. But I do think for what I do, and for 23y of experience, yeah, I should be making more than $24/h. It's kind of insulting. Altruism doesn't fill the gas tank or pay the bills. I'm worried about my retirement--will I even get to retire? I never expected to become wealthy at this job. I just think I should be compensated fairly, and I really don't think what I get is fair.

The ANA is totally clueless. I have no use for them. They have ceased being relevant for a lot of nurses.
 
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The solution to overpaid nurses is simple. Open more nursing schools. Increase supply and prices will drop. Has the medical groups ever thought of creating a new group of professionals who could be hired interchangeably with nurses and yet fall under the board of medicine? I'm all for that.

It was floated around back in the early 80s. I believe the role was "Registered Care Technician." It was met with a great deal of opposition (surprise) so never really got off the ground. But feel free to have a go at it again when you become a doctor.
 
A little competition for the nurses is a good thing. If they invade our turf, we should invade theirs. I'll do my best to revive this idea.
 
They not complaining about your $24.50/hr.

They're complaining about my ex-girlfriends who made $46.00 base pay, and since they were signed on with a travel company, had all their housing and rental car paid for, then came in to every shift so hung over they could barely stand up.

They're complaining about my wife who cleared 80k a year base pay with zero overtime, then still went on strike because the 6% annual raise for the next three years just wasn't enough, it had to at least be 10%. Of course the hospital went belly up shortly thereafter.

But mainly, they're complaining about nurse2b2009, who believes that no matter how much nurses make, it is never enough. They're complaining about the fact that even though hospitals are closing, patients face increasing copays and difficulty getting insurance, physician reimbursements are being slahsed year after year, and hospital staff are being cut the bone, the solution of the ANA continues to be "pay nurses more" and shut down hospitals with strikes "for the good patients".
Agreed.
 
And I agree with you.

The problem is that the continued calls by the unions and national organizations for more money come in the face of a rapidly collapsing health system. Where else do salaries continue to rise except in the nursing community? Where is the conversation about how labor costs fit into the hospital bill, and the role that nursing salaries play in that. And how seriously can the community take nursing organizations who claim to be the "softer side of medicine", then walk out on the patients they care for?

I think nursing suffers from an image issue with their coworkers. They are the only group that has the power to hold patients hostage, and routinely exercises it. And there is never any kind of ackowledgement that nursing salaries, like physician reimbursements and charity hospital care, play a role in the continuing freefall of American health care systems.

And it doesn't help that groups like the ANA openly advocate universal health care plans that will further screw the docs financially.

I don't know that I see any nursing organizations claiming to be "soft." There are those dreadful Johnson and Johnson commercials which are indirectly partnered with the ANA, IIRC, so mayyybe you can make that connection. But organizations like the California Nurses' Association--they don't claim to be soft at all. And as I said, when conditions become unsafe for patients and caregivers, sometimes there are no alternatives but a strike.

The patients are not left without nursing care. Like I said, hospitals pay premium dollars for strike-breaker nurses and will often over-staff units just to "thumb their noses" at the striking staff. Who really gets held hostage? Nurses who are forced to mandatory overtime. MO is like having a gun held to your head; you can't leave, because your license is threatened, but if you are tired and make a mistake, you could lose your license. Either way, you're for it.

There is an image problem. I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm at the point where that sort of problem just isn't my problem any more; I'm working on my "out clause." I do think part of the image problem is the idea that nurses should be satisfied in the joy of taking care of patients and not be concerned about money. That might have been OK in Florence Nightengale's time, but not mine. DOL statistics show consistently that nursing wages have remained relatively flat, despite the demand. The longer you're in the profession, the less your compensation goes up. It is really, really frustrating.
 
Nursing requires a 2 year's associate degree which can be earned at many community colleges for a relatively small amount of tuition, hence the barrier to entry is quite low. Given the low barrier to entry, physicians and physicians-in-training, such as Taurus, would expect nurses to have relatively low rates of pay.

The reason for the high rate of pay for nurses is:

1) monopoly power through unionization
2) high burnout rate

The latter is self-explanatory, nursing is no cakewalk, but for the former: California nurses are largely unionized, they have a monopoly on manpower for the hospitals, which are closed shops, and have been for decades. Nursing wages are much lower ($20 an hour) in states where unions are illegal, e.g. North Carolina, or where the nursing union is in bed with hospital management, e.g. Oregon. Nurse monopoly power lets them extract wages from hospitals that are way above equilibrium market rates.

So...nurses control salary using monopoly power via unionization, physicians control salary using monopoly power on medical school spots and the mix of residency spots.

This sort of monopoly game is not uncommon, plumbers, electricians, dentists, and physicians use a different method of monopoly: limiting the supply of the workforce. Plumbers limit the number of licenses available, that's why your local licensed plumber earns $80-$120 per hour. Electricians limit the number of trainee and license spots, that's why your electrician earns $90 an hour. Neither of these positions requires ANY college.

Then there are physicians... physicians limit the supply of medical school spots and then the mix of specialty positions, supposedly to maximize the quality of the service provider, however the supply of medical school spots and residency spots seems to remain constant irrespective of the size and quality of the applicant pool, the spots are actually limited in order to prop up salaries, which are the highest in the world. The physician method worked wonderfully until the explosion of the HMO's in the 1980's, it seems that the physician method is woefully ineffective in dealing with HMO's.

On the other hand, nurses using the unionization method of monopoly lost no ground with the explosion of HMO's in the 1980's, after all unionization methods had been used for decades and were effective against Kaiser Permanente in California, and Kaiser Permanente was the model for the HMO act of 1973 (most HMO's mimic Kaiser).

Unfortunately, physicians cannot unionize for two reasons

1) because they are considered supervisors.
2) during nursing strikes nursing duties are dropped onto the laps of physicians (since they are non-unionized, no strike breaking clause), however during physician strikes, who would cover physician duties? if docs were manufacturing widgets, this wouldn't be an issue, but since it's lives at stake and docs have all taken the hippocratic oath, there is just no way doctors can strike
 
Yeah, I'm not really seeing the skyrocketing nursing pay. In fact, last year our differentials were cut drastically. Health insurance gets more expensive for us, too.

I'd have more sympathy for the poor hospitals if the CEO wasn't making $1 million per year, and if they didn't pay travel nurses twice what I make rather than offering a $10/hour bonus to come in extra, or if they hadn't built a new hospital wing, providing every room with a large flat-screen TV, yet refused to purchase more telemetry monitors, all the while claiming they have to cut our pay because they have no money.
 
The only way to limit those high salaries is to eliminate nursing unions.

But then.. are the med students and physicians willing to open residency positions to all medical school graduates based solely on USMLE step 1 and 2 scores, rather than running positions through US MD, then US DO, then FMGs?

If not you shouldn't b*tch about nursing salaries, you use a similar type of monopoly power, it just hasn't been as effective in dealing with HMOs...
 
Just talking to my girlfriend back home in Oregon who's finishing her last semester of nursing school. Came upon the subject of nursing faculty pay. It's abysmal: literally, HALF of what the graduate nurses can expect to be paid. Why on earth would anyone teach for HALF of what their students are going to make first year out? That's insane. I don't know how they can afford to teach quite frankly. Now this is just one community college (but well-respected) nursing program and perhaps the faculty don't have it as bad at other institutions, but geez.
 
If a regular RN is pulling 117k, the docs working there should be making at least 200k.

Given that its a county facility, I seriously doubt they pay their IM docs 200k at this facility. Perhaps somebody can prove me wrong

Also, ALL California State correctional facilities are now under federal control because of a 2002 lawsuit brought by inmates for substandard care, Plata v. Davis. The substandard care in part stemmed for a lack of quality staff, medical and nurse wards in prisons had a reputation for attracting the bottom of the barrel physicians and nurses, and even then, would have trouble filling their ranks. The federal receiver went about firing and retiring management, and then, in order to fill the ranks with quality nurses and doctors, offered premium pay.


I'm sure the county correctional institutions saw the writing on the wall....hence you have this higher rate of pay for RN's.

The state correctional facilities pays RN's $7,000-$8,000 per month, anesthetists, $8,000-$9,500 per month, an IM or FP physician $223,000-$248,000 per year ($18,500-$20,500/month), so usually when one salary is out of whack in this situation, they're all out of whack, SF is just an anomaly in that they forgot to raise the IM/FP physician pay...
 
I know that college professors have a great deal once they get tenure (though the road to that spot is difficult)

At my school the semester is 12 weeks long + 1 week of finals, professors teach 1 class per semester + do research, otherwise teach 2 classes per semester. That means they have 52-26= 26 weeks of vacation. They also get paid sabbatical (1 year off) every 6 years. During the school week they teach a total of 4.5 hours + research, or teach 9 hours per week.

So if one works only 1/2 of the year, and gets a year off every 7th year (6 years work + 1 year off, like the Sabbath).. well yeah... and teaches 9 hours per week + say 9 hours of lesson planning, yeah... your salary is going to be pretty low compared to working.. you're working half as many hours per week for half as many weeks per year... with a full year off every 7th year...

that's 1/2*1/2*6/7 = 21% of a full time worker. Professors definitely make more than 21% of what full time workers in their field earn.... probably more on the order of 40-50%

My guess is that those nursing professors also practice nursing
 
I think nurses are paid pretty fairly right now. The ones I know work their butts off for every shift, every day, but I think they do get compensated well for it. Perhaps my opinion would change if I worked as a nurse, I do not know...
 
My goal is to become a nursing instructor. I'm currently finishing my BSN and plan to start an MSN program in Jan. 2009, graduate in May 2011. I fully realize that the pay potential is not as great, but there are two draws for me: 1) I genuinely love teaching. It makes me happiest and most fulfilled. 2) It's a lifestyle thing. I don't want to spend the rest of my career rotating off shifts, weekends and holidays. Also, my real goal is to return to my family farm and teaching part time and internet classes is very compatible with, say, a 7 am milking time. :laugh:

That said, very, very few nurses share my particular goals, and if they don't begin compensating instructors adequately, the shortage will continue.


ETA: I really don't think they could pay me enough to work in a max security prison in a gang-infested area. Nu-uh. No amount of money is worth that to me.
 
Supply and demand, boys and girls - supply and demand. Nothing more.

Nobody loves nurses more than me, but to say any nurse and many doctors for that matter are worth 350K working for a city? Especially when the taxpayers are footing the bill....Just sounds fishy. Supply and demand isn't when the taxpayers are getting robbed. I'm sure whatever service this nurse is providing is NOT worth anywhere near that kind of money. At least IMHO.
 
I know that college professors have a great deal once they get tenure (though the road to that spot is difficult)

At my school the semester is 12 weeks long + 1 week of finals, professors teach 1 class per semester + do research, otherwise teach 2 classes per semester. That means they have 52-26= 26 weeks of vacation. They also get paid sabbatical (1 year off) every 6 years. During the school week they teach a total of 4.5 hours + research, or teach 9 hours per week.

So if one works only 1/2 of the year, and gets a year off every 7th year (6 years work + 1 year off, like the Sabbath).. well yeah... and teaches 9 hours per week + say 9 hours of lesson planning, yeah... your salary is going to be pretty low compared to working.. you're working half as many hours per week for half as many weeks per year... with a full year off every 7th year...

that's 1/2*1/2*6/7 = 21% of a full time worker. Professors definitely make more than 21% of what full time workers in their field earn.... probably more on the order of 40-50%

My guess is that those nursing professors also practice nursing

Not sure about your calculations, but as a nursing instructor, yes my former students do make more then I do annually ( locally about $45K) But I work 9 months out of the year while they work 12 months. As for the teaching 9 hours per week, Well when I was teaching full time I worked 7 days a week on both classes plus the clinicals (taking student nurses to the hospital). It took every moment to prepare for lectures, make exams, grade the clinical paperwork weekly. The work was never ending. For a 3 credit course, I spent 6 hours per week preparing just the lecture! I was working 60 hours per week, so I now only teach part time. Love taking students to the ER/ICU:) I can make more money as both RN or FNP. The rewards for me as a nursing teacher are personal & very rewarding. Most State Boards of Nursing require a Master's in Nursing to teach and locally without a doctoral degree I am not eligible for tenure. When I started teaching my salary was a grand $30K, had just finished my MSN/FNP & that was a paycut of $18K.

SailorNurse, MSN,FNP,BC
 
If that nurse was working that much OT, there should be a BON investigation re: quality of care. No one can work that much OT and be safe.

If that nurse was falsifying his/her payroll, his/her license should be sanctioned.
 
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