ISSUES WITH REGISTERED NURSES

Issues with Registered Nursing Argumentation Essay

Faith .A. Johnson
University of Texas at El Paso (El Paso, TX)

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Issues with Registered Nursing
Hospitals varied dramatically when it comes to nurses being there to assist to multiple
patients everyday with lack of rest with no say so. Theyre a lot of drawbacks when it comes to
nurses within their profession of working in hospitals for long hours with not much breaks. This
information is addition to cover what registered nurses in the medical field are having at this
moment with having a healthy professional background. When it comes to the going against the
reasons why registered nurses do not deserve the mistreatment of having to work mandatory
overtime or no sick days off. And why it should be resolved with evidence that will be to support
my argument will give you much insight of whats really going on in the medical industry today.
In other words, with that being said registered nurses should not have to go
through this to keep some type of employment, but not only its affecting them but its also a
impact on the patients of having a nice ethical climate. Article, reports, journals explained that
nurses are having issues with these complications of changing the mandatory overtimes which is
causing them to make surveys. However, there are multiple surveys all over but the main ones
will be the three wave, and cross sectional survey. Having nurses go out their way to come to
work with acknowledgment about it should be changed to give them a short amount of hours and
decent amount of sick days with no necessary on-calls to cause them take these measures to get
things fixed how they suppose to.
Overall the evidence that I have to back up this argument is from some information that I
have found would make you very surprise to see what registered nurses can not get resolved in
their everyday life. In addition, to surveys from before they both have the same support to help
with this issue but they are completely different, because cross sectional survey defined the
musculoskeletal disorder case of the different levels of pain. Then longitudinal three-wave

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survey was just the reports of the health problems that were going with the nurses, and reports of
the mandatory overtime. Such as, MSD cases also known as Musculoskeletal Disorders thats
causing nurses to report neck, back, shoulder pain with huge amount of overtime hours
(Lipscomb, 2004). However, the MSD is what causing a lot of damage to registered nurses
health of getting through those day or nights to keep from withdrawing from the patients and
work. Also research towards moral distress affects nurses that made nurses of all positions report
the experience of moral distress when they are not able to do the right things (Pauly, 2009). A
recent researcher named Corley found the moderate levels of moral distress among nurses and
reported that education, age and years of experience were not predictive of moral distress
intensity on their health that relates too MSD (Pauly, B., 2009).
Not to mention, that nurses with certain staffing practices that are use cause hazardous
safety complications for not only nurses but the patients (Rogers, 2004).For example, with hthe
lack of energy can cause you to lose track of what youre doing with a certain patient. It also can
affect you with giving the wrong medicine or forgetting things easily. From recent reasearchers
in an organization of Institute of Medicine (IOM) report keeping patients safe explicitly
voluntary overtime also be limited (Rogers, 2004). As a result to hazards of, sleep deprived with
not only long hours but having much safety for patients and fixing the frequency errors of
overtime (Rogers, (2004). That should be reduced to cause these hazardous problems take full
effect on the nurses today.
Generally speaking, from my point of view theres so much that can support why I think
nurses should not have to deal with this much longer bon this overtime accusations. But theres
always an opposite view when it comes to people in need for a nurse. And how people would
actually feel if we did not have any type of nurses to help us while in the hospitals, residential

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homes etc I think it would be good to have some overtime depending on the situations now if
its for no reason then its selfish thinking. For example, saving a life can be a good reason why
we would want to keep nurses around if some one do not come to their shift when needed that
can be a relief too why. Another reason, similar can be the minimum staffing levels that nurses in
hospitals have unionized hospitals have been described as more willing their immediate
supervisors, so that unionized hospitals might use less overtime (Berney, 2005).
However, the nurses overtime has become an extreme issue in the United States thats
leading to the state of federal legislation to restrict mandatory overtime to keep from it constantly
going on. A lot hospital managers have several options to pick from for dealing with chronic or
occasional staff shortages, including hiring additional staff, assigning overtime hours, hiring per
diem, and agency nurses(Berney,2005).So theres basically so many reasons why they have
overtime from my understanding I can understand the situation but it seems so unfair.
In conclusion, I feel nurses deserve to be heard to when it comes to their schedules on
how much they actually work each day with not having to work so much overtime. Because, if
we dont listen to our voices on whats actually going to help us where would we be when it
comes to our health. So in my opinion, with out the recognition of our hard working nurses in the
medical field of the multiple hours thats being worked everyone should have the right to be able
to get change in our community. To not only better a healthy background but to fix the medical
industries with nurses that work any positions should get the same attention like any other
person. And we also do not want this mandatory to affect our patients in our community with this
causing hazardous safety issues. So this is typical to happen but hopefully it comes to a stop to
this of the hours that nurses or anyone is taking to keep any source of employment in this world
we live in.

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References
Lipscomb, J., Trinkoff, A., Brady, B., & Geiger-Brown, J. (2004). Health care system
Changes and reported musculoskeletal disorders among registered nurses.
American Journal of Public Health, 94(8), 1431-1435.

Rogers, A. E., Hwang, W. T., Scott, L. D., Aiken, L. H., & Dinges, D. F. (2004). The working
Hours of hospital staff nurses and patient safety. Health affairs, 23(4), 202-212.

Pauly, B., Varcoe, C., Storch, J., & Newton, L. (2009). Registered nurses perceptions of moral
distress and ethical climate. Nursing ethics, 16(5), 561-573.

Trinkoff,A.M.,Le,R.,GeigerBrown,J.,Lipscomb,J.,&Lang,G.(2006).Longitudinal
relationshipofworkhours,mandatoryovertime,andoncalltomusculoskeletalproblems
innurses.Americanjournalofindustrialmedicine,49(11),964971.

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