On Fri, 23 Nov 2012 18:04:54 -0500, Dave Smith
> wrote:

>On 23/11/2012 3:27 PM, Christine Dabney wrote:
>
>>>> The difference is nursing pays better and it is an essential service.
>>>> Some people need 24/7 care. There is no good reason to have big sales on
>>>> holidays.
>>>>
>>> Nurses may start off at a monetary level higher than Joe Schmoe over
>>> in the shoe department; but it's beginning salary for a college
>>> graduate with a post grad degree and they don't get rich doing what
>>> they do.
>>
>> And for what we do, we don't get paid nearly enough. Other people's
>> lives are in our hands..literally.
>>
>
>I don't know how much you get paid. It changes from one area to another.
>Around here nurses are quite well paid, and I know several Canadian
>trained nurses who are working in the US and making good money. FWIW, I
>have a SiL who is a psychiatric nurse and I am under the impression that
>her annual salary is in the $70-80,000 range.

That's pretty good- about what my wife was making in Psych at a local
private hospital. She did 30 years for the state for a whole lot
less before that. [I think the salary topped out at $45K-- OTOH, the
pension ain't bad] Because the management of the hospital was so
unbearable she left there and became a Visiting Community Mental
Health Nurse. It paid less than the even the state did, and was
harder work than being on a unit-- but she loved it.

She's sick now but might be able to work again someday and she hopes
to get back to that job.

That's the problem with the profession. Most of the folks in it would
rather work for the patients than the big bucks. The greedy ones
come and go or become [lousy] management.

Jim
[the son, brother, and husband of nurses]