This is one of the oldest complaints in the world, and not very insightful. First of all, your resident salary is funded by federal Medicare dollars; the RN's salary is funded by the hospital's cash flow.
The reason residents do not make much money is because tecnically we are trainees. An analogy... let's say you do an internship right out of college for a big marketing or banking firm in NYC. You are going to want to impress in order to maybe get offered a position when you finish (not unlike trying to shine during residency in order to secure a fellowship at the same institution) You will work long hours, not have much autonomy, and make maybe 15 bucks an hour. Kinda like being an intern, huh? Being an intern sucks, i agree, but you should reframe how you look at it - imagine that you are actually still the student that you are, and try to be psyched you are being paid at all! I mean, really, should someone pay you more than 40K/yr to do a job that requires you to be constantly supervised. And if you don't think you need to be supervised, tell yourself that again when a new onset DKA patient's drip isnt working and they start getting obtunded, or that post-op cariac patient starts having dysrythmias, or that psychotic man grabs the nurse and puts a fork to her neck. You will relaize in a heartbeat just how little you know, and how indeed you are still very much a "student"
Speaking of nurses.... they are, in general, paid ****. This is why there is such a huge shortage - something that is soon to become a frightening public health crisis. back in a different era, women went into nursing because it was one of only a few jobs a college-educated women could secure, and expect to support herself independently with. With increasing opportunities for women in the 1960s and 1970s, the shortage began to manifest. The fact is, most women (and I am not being sexist, just realistic) do not want to take a job where they wade in crap, blood, and vomit all day in a physically and emotinally demanding workplace where they are treated like second-class personnel by doctors and patients alike. Whats to love there? The ones that stick wit it are to be commended; unfortunately most of the veteren nurses leave bedside nursing to become administrators/educators/etc. The noble ones that stay in staff nursing and want to make decent money work for travel agencies where they have to work in very undesirabel hopsitals and move around every few months. Nursing is a powerfully important profession, and we as physicians really need to become advocates for RNs in their quest for better pay. They deserve every penny they make, and we should be on board with the policy changes that need to take place in order for them to regain a decent standard of living. Our professional lives, and the literal lives of our patients depend on it.
Flame me ad lib ;-)
PGY-1 Peds
