SALARY SURVEY SPECIAL ISSUE 2022
PRESENTED BY:
®
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Table of Contents
In This Issue
Articles
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Nurse’s Notebook
2022 Annual Salary Survey: Nurses Report “Modest” Pay Increases from 2021 By Louis Pilla
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The Transformative Powers of Mentorship
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Nursing and the Great Resignation
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By Julia Quinn-Szcesuil
By Michele Wojciechowski
You May Just Be Right – You Could Do Better! Reflections on Nurse Leadership You May Just Be Right—You Could Do Better! Angela Barron McBride, PhD, RN, FAAN
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Salary Survey Special Issue
®
Nurses’ Notebook A “Modest” Year for Nursing Salaries
CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS/ EDITORIAL OFFICE
Well, no one claimed that “heroes” bring home big paychecks, but we were expecting something more than this. Despite the hullaballoo about skyrocketing travel nurse salaries, when Louis Pilla analyzed your responses to our new salary survey, his conclusions deliver a clear message: Don’t believe the hype. As an example, the article says that the number of traveling nurses will continue to rise but pay is finally sloping back downward. The delirious $10k a week cited for some specialties last year was a brief high, you are not likely to see many RNs flashing Louboutin-red soles as they step into a Lexus or hauling designer luggage as they fly to their next gig (sorry?). Travel nursing will remain huge, of course, as it will continue to pay very handsomely, and odd Covid knock-on effects like the normalization of “WFH” (working from home) may encourage even more nurses to take the peripatetic path now that it’s easier for spouses to visit without missing a beat at the office. As for nursing salaries, though, don’t expect to see many nurses flaunting rare Air Jordans or Yeezys on TikTok. In 2022-2023, it seems like even some traveling nurses are back to asking, “can I make enough to pay off student loans for my FNP?” Being the only Black person working in the OR can be an enormous burden—and that prospect is only the tip of the iceberg for non-white nursing students. In this issue, DNP and CRNA Donté Flanagan talks about Bigger Dreams, Better Tomorrows, the remarkable mentoring foundation he founded to create a support network for nursing students and nurses of color. The foundation connects students with mentors, encourages non-white nurses to become educators, and offers programs that help nurses of color prepare for a lifetime in the profession. Flanagan tells Julia Quinn-Sczeuil about the conception and aims of his brainchild.
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In Nursing and the Great Resignation, recruiters and academics describe the complex issues that are leading nurses to make a painful choice: to sacrifice a career that many of them dreamt of since childhood. As one tells writer Michele Wojciechowski, “Let’s be honest—money is a huge factor. But it’s far from the only factor. For many nurses, it’s not even number one.” Do you have what it takes to be a nurse leader? “If you find yourself regularly thinking some version of ‘I could do better than what is now in place,’” Angela Barron McBride says, well, you just might be right! In our final article, this Living Legend nurse educator offers some incisive insights into the challenges of becoming a leader in this predominately female profession. Here’s looking forward to a less “modest” 2023 Salary Report! Koren Thomas
For editorial inquiries and submissions: editor@minoritynurse.com For subscription inquiries and address changes: © Copyright 2022 Springer Publishing Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction, distribution, or translation without express written permission is strictly prohibited.
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2022 Annual Salary Survey: Nurses Report “Modest” Pay Increases from 2021 BY LOUIS PILLA
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Salary Survey Special Issue
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Median Salary by Ethnic Background
f you had a modest increase in your paycheck this year, your experience mirrors that of many of your colleagues. In this year’s Minority Nurse salary survey, respondents said they earned a median salary of $73,000, a 4.3% increase from the median of $70,000 reported in last year’s salary survey, and an 11.5% increase from the $65,469 reported in the 2020 survey.
Median Salary by Year
Median Nursing Salary by Year For those who identify as African American nurses, the median is $75,000. That’s up from both the $73,000 reported in last year’s survey and the $74,000 reported in the 2020 survey. For those who identify as Hispanic or Latino/Latina, the median is $73,000, a small decline from the $75,000 reported in last year’s survey, though far higher than the $56,100 reported in 2020.
Median Salaries by Ethnic Background To collect this new data, Minority Nurse and Springer Publishing e-mailed a link to an online survey that asked nurses not about only their salaries, but also about how long they have been in the profession,
had earned an MSN or other master’s-level degree. Half of those who responded to a question about the type of organization they work for said that they practiced in a hospital setting, either a public hospital (29%) or private hospital (23%). And the highest percentage of those who responded about their primary job function said they worked in patient care (43%), followed by leadership/management
Median Salary by Years of Experience
their educational backgrounds, and the type of organization for which they work. More than 800 nurses from across the United States took the survey.
a BSN or bachelor’s-level degree had a median salary of $72,000. Those with an MSN or master’s-level degree jumped to a median of $95,000.
Experience and Education
Median Salary by Degree Level
Greater experience, as might be expected, leads to higher salaries. Nurses with less than a year on the job earn a median of $62,000, while those with 1-5 years of experience have a median of $69,000. Nurses with 21 or more years of experience report earning a much higher median salary of $80,000.
Median Salary by Years of Experience When it comes to education, nurses with an ADN or other associate’s-level degree reported a median salary of $70,000, while those with
Nurses in leadership/management positions report a median salary of $79,500 compared to a salary of $71,500 for those who work in patient care. That’s an increase from the $65,000 reported in last year’s survey for nurses working in patient care. Of the nurses who responded to a question about their educational background, the highest percentage (45%) said they earned a BSN or other bachelor’s-level degree. Some 24% said they had an ADN or other associate’s-level degree, and the same percent (24%) said they
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(13%) and case management (10%).
Certification Matters Finally, of those who reported a specialty certification, acute care was most often reported followed by critical care nursing. When comparing salaries by nursing certification, CRNAs reported the highest salaries followed by Neonatal Nurse Practitioners, Clinical Nurse Leaders, and Family Nurse Practitioners. Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) led the way with a median salary of $215,000 nationally. CRNA salaries were followed by Neonatal Nurse Practitioners and Clinical Nurse Leaders (CNL) salaries, each with median salaries of $108,000 and $107,500 per year, respectively.
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Certified APRN Salaries Certification
Median Salary
Psych-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP)
$75,000
Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner (AGNP)
$77,500
Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN)
$80,000
Critical Care Nurse Certification (CCRN)
$84,000
Certified Nurse Educator (CNE)
$87,500
Medical-Surgical Nurse (CMSRN)
$90,000
Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM)
$104,000
Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP)
$107,000
Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL)
$107,500
Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (NNP)
$108,000
Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNA)
$215,000
Median Salary by Degree Level
Median Salary by Nursing Certification
Louis Pilla has a long record of
trends in healthcare with meaning,
development of major online
com, one of the first nursing web-
serving nurses and other clinicians
context, and insight.
nursing reference and procedure
sites, and was Executive Editor
As a Director at Elsevier,
products. Prior to that he served
at Nursing magazine, a premier
he was instrumental in the
as Editorial Director at Nurses.
large-circulation journal
by reporting on developments and
8
Salary Survey Special Issue
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The Transformative Powers of Mentorship BY JULIA QUINN-SZCESUIL
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Salary Survey Special Issue
W
hen Dr. Donté Flanagan, DNP, CRNA was progressing through nursing school and through the doctor of nursing program in nurse anesthesia at Columbia University, he had people to help him with the technical aspects of anesthesia, but other questions were less easy to find answers to. For instance, he had no one to consult with when he experienced microaggressions and discrimination as a Black man in a nursing specialty populated primarily by white nurses. He couldn’t find the support so he decided to create it for those who followed after him. In creating the Bigger Dreams, Better Tomorrows Foundation, Flanagan has created a wide network where nurses can support each other across the full arc of their careers -- from nursing student to an experienced nurse. The program offers direct mentorship to nursing students and a parallel Faculty Fellowship program helps experienced nurses move into teaching roles.
to see it can be done and can help dispel or at least dilute feelings of self doubt. “I’m there to say, I am going to hold you accountable, and I am going to be with you the
Dr. Donté Flanagan, DNP, CRNA enables greater success, says Flanagan. And the space he has created gives students of color and underrepresented students a place where they can safely address sensitive and deeply personal topics such as not being seen and not being heard or experiencing microaggressions or blatant aggression at work.
“Students aren’t applying to schools because they don’t see someone at the other side who looks like them.”
Sharing Knowledge for Success “I recognize how difficult it can be without the support,” he says, while noting how life changing it is to have that kind of encouragement. “It’s about helping others succeed, and then someone feels seen. It’s important to know I am giving someone something I didn’t have. When you succeed, others succeed.” The Bigger Dreams, Better Tomorrows Foundation offers programs on everything from financial literacy to mental health, because a solid foundation of essential skills
Stephen Sanchez DNP, SRNA, RN, who was a mentee of Flanagan, says he appreciates hearing advice and guidance from others and he also knows it makes an impact on his life. “It’s an invaluable experience to speak to people who have been through the process,” he says. “You don’t know what it’s like until you go through it.” Having someone who has gone through a similar experience, of being the only person of color in the OR, for example, gives a mentee the confidence
Oludayo Akinboboye, nurse anesthesia student, Columbia University whole way,” says Flanagan. “It creates that positive automatic loop.” Oludayo Akinboboye, a firstyear nurse anesthesia student at Columbia University, says Flanagan’s mentorship helped him get into nurse anesthesia school after he struggled to do so. “Mentorship is extremely important because you will not know everything you need to know prior to starting whatever journey you embark on,” he says. “Having a mentor who has been through what you are about to go through can help prepare you for what is to come. It’s great to have guidance and build those relationships as you go through your process because at the end of the day, it’s another form of support.”
Navigating the Switch to Academia And for experienced nurses who want to branch into academia, Flanagan says the potential perils are different but undeniable. “As an educator, you have knowledge and you want to share it and have it understood,” he says. “But as
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a CRNA, we aren’t taught how to teach effectively. Academia is so different from our clinicals.” Moving from an expert nurse to a professor takes an entirely different skill set-from how to lecture to how to write test questions to working with students. Although some students may give glowing evaluations, for example, plenty more can be brutal, says Flanagan. “It can catch you off guard,” he says, “and people can think they are terrible. It can be demoralizing.”
Dr. Adrienne Cain, DNP, CRNA
“Moving from an expert nurse to a professor takes an entirely different skill set--from how to lecture to how to write test questions to working with students.”
To help nurses make the transition, Flanagan’s Faculty Fellowship offers real-life guidance on how to teach well. Dr. Adrienne Cain, DNP, CRNA, said she never had a desire to be a professor, but as a Black woman who is now a DNP of anesthesia, she says she has valuable insight to share. “Black students going through
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anesthesia school have to work four times as hard,” she says, noting that she would’ve benefitted greatly from having a professor who understood that struggle. Because of that, she says she’s driven to give back. She loves mentoring students in the OR and is gearing up for an eventual teaching role so the Faculty Fellowship program seemed like an excellent option. “I want to be ready for it,” she says. The program teaches her how to teach so her students will learn better. “It’s about the best way to set students up for success,” she says. “It’s about understanding
the different types of learning and how students retain information.”
and decreasing bias and judgment. “All around, you get better quality of care and more equity,” he says.
Diversity Boosts the Entire Profession Increasing diversity in academia will only help increase diversity in the nursing field. “Students aren’t applying to schools because they don’t see someone at the other side who looks like them,” says Flanagan. Faculty diversity helps all students be better clinicians, says Flanagan, because educators naturally draw on their own stories, enriching the understanding of all students
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“Having someone who has gone through a similar experience… gives a mentee the confidence to see it can be done and can help dispel or at least dilute feelings of self-doubt.”
As more supports are put in place, students use the tools to help them navigate a major source of stress. “When I see any students of color coming through, I think let’s help them,” says Cain. Even long after a formal mentor/mentee relationship ends, she says, the connections stay strong because they help. Cain notes, “We all need as much support as we can get.”
Julia Quinn-Szcesuil is a freelance writer based in Bolton, Massachusetts.
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Nursing and the Great Resignation BY MICHELE WOJCIECHOWSKI
During the Great Resignation, tons of employees have quit their jobs. Experts weigh in on its effects on the nursing field. Throughout the COVID19 pandemic, workers began voluntarily quitting their jobs in what has been called the “Great Resignation.” Also known as the “Big Quit,” these resignations have been affecting health care in a big way. So how has it been with the nursing field? “Earlier this year, I participated in a podcast discussing the results of Hospital IQ’s survey of over 200 bedside nurses,” says Teri Ridge, BSN, RN, Director of Clinical Solutions at Hospital IQ. “Our survey revealed that up to 90% of nurses are at least considering leaving the bedside.” She continues with, “During the height of the pandemic, it wasn’t uncommon to hear that 30% of a hospital’s workforce had left. It’s nearly impossible to recruit, train, and onboard that many nurses in a short period of time. Managers are ending up getting pulled into scrubs and working at the bedside themselves.”
The Cause According to the experts we interviewed, there’s not just one reason why nurses are choosing to leave; there are many.
“The biggest challenge going on in nursing right now is there is no pay equity or hour equity across the United States.”
“The biggest challenge going on in nursing right now is there is no pay equity or hour equity across the United States,” says Ann Gibbons Phalen, PhD, CRNP, NNP-BC, Dean of the Frances M. Maguire School of Nursing and Health Professions at Gwynedd Mercy University. “For example, in southern states, nurses may be paid less than nurses in California. There are no mandated work hours, which results inequity in not only pay, but also workload. This is one of the biggest contributors to the nursing shortage that we are experiencing.” But there are other reasons as well. “The violence in the workplace has dramatically increased. This isn’t a popular topic to talk about, but it’s a huge threat to the nursing and health professions.,” she says. “The physical and psychological abuse nurses and health professionals endure on a daily basis is unlike any other profession. Patients often feel vulnerable and combine that with an increase in mental health issues that are untreated, and the result is violence.” It’s not only violence from patients that is a problem, Phalen says. “The violence between fellow nurses and health professionals has also increased. Combine the abuse with lack of pay or hour equity, and you can see why nurses are opting to retire or leave the profession,” she says. According to Ridge, nurses “are exhausted, physically and mentally. Nurses inherently want to help their patients and those close to them, but that means they tend to put themselves last. With the hospitals
being so short-staffed, nurses will inevitably step up to fill empty shifts over and over to the point that they simply wear themselves out. And during those extra shifts, they’re also dealing with many more patients than is typical, which creates extra burden.”
“Let’s be honest—money is a huge factor. But it’s far from the only factor. For many nurses, it’s not even number one.” Ridge says that she hears from nurses that they are exhausted, frustrated, and feeling misunderstood or unheard. “Patients are more demanding than ever before, with some reaching the point of becoming physically or verbally abusive. And, it doesn’t seem like an end is in sight,” she says. “Nurses are used to carrying a burden, but now they are seeing their professional burden affect their family and personal relationships, which is changing the equation for many of them.” Right now, the number of nurses resigning is crippling the workforce, says Ridge. Because hospitals can’t hire more nurses as fast as they are leaving, they are relying on contract staff and travel nurses. She explains that this isn’t sustainable because “hospital leaders are already calling for rate caps from travel agencies.” Regarding clinical adjunct faculty, this becomes a Catch22. “I rely on nurses at our clinical sites to serves as clinical adjunct faculty and mentor our
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students. If nurses at our clinical hospitals and other health care systems are overworked, understaffed, and underpaid, they don’t have the bandwidth to also serve as clinical adjunct faculty members,” Phalen explains. “If a nursing program doesn’t have sufficient adjunct preceptors and clinical sites for students to get the hands-on learning that is require to become a registered nurse, then institutions won’t be able to accept and graduate the number of quality nurses needed to replenish those who have left the industry.”
“Employers across the nation have to stop relying on band aids and quick fixes, and instead focus on the core issues.” What can employers do to stop the Great Resignation in nursing? “Employers across the nation have to stop relying on band aids and quick fixes, and instead focus on the core issues—such as inadequate staffing models and flexibility, pay equity, and poor working conditions,” says Phalen. “The health of the nation and the people we serve are severely at risk, with populations in underserved areas at the greatest risk. Like other professions, nurses need to feel valued. The system needs to be fixed if we want to provide health equity and quality care to all of our nation’s problems.” Ridge says, “There needs to be open dialogue between leadership and frontline staff.
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Nurses need to be heard, voice their frustrations, and talk about why they are leaving and what it would take for them to stay. Let’s be honest—money is a huge factor. But it’s far from the only factor. For many
nurses, it’s not even number one. It’s about job satisfaction, feeling good about the care they provide, and feeling appreciated and understood.”
Michele Wojciechowski is a
blood. She’s also author of the
national award-winning free-
humor book, Next Time I Move,
lance writer based in Baltimore,
They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box.
Maryland. She loves writing about the nursing field but comes close to fainting when she actually sees
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You May Just Be Right – You Could Do Better! Reflections on Nurse Leadership By ANGELA BARRON McBRIDE, Ph.D., RN, FAAN
In the second edition of her Growth and Development of Nurse Leaders, Angela Barron McBride, Ph.D., RN, FAAN interrogates her own and others’ conceptions of the “stuff” that comprises an effective leader. Below is an excerpt from the first chapter, “The Right Stuff:” I didn’t set out to be a leader, but I also began to see over time that I had some abilities in that direction. The first time you think “Even I could do better than that,” you mean that more as an insult to the person you’re criticizing than you mean it as a compliment to your own abilities.
However, if you find yourself regularly thinking some version of “I could do better than what is now in place,” then you should, in my opinion, redirect your energies away from the disapproving part of that stance and seriously contemplate your leadership potential. You may just be right—you could do better! Said or implied often enough, “Even I could do better” is likely to get you invited to assume more leadership and refusing to accept this challenge will look more unseemly over time. You (and others) reach a point of “put up or shut up.”
“I wanted to be a good nurse, but back then I didn’t see nurses as leaders who could inspire movements or headlines.”
I was once asked in an interview, “When did you first know that you were a leader?” The interviewer wanted to find out whether I had been a leader in my early years, but I found that question difficult to answer, as it seemed improper for me to admit that I grew up thinking of myself as in any way exceptional. My view of leadership, even at the time of that interview, was still shaped by some residual notion of a leader as “the great one,” because while I was growing up I had been encouraged to read the lives of statesmen, scientists, and saints for inspiration (all noticeably lacking in female role models). Since I didn’t see myself becoming president of the country, destined for a Nobel Prize, or ready for martyrdom, I didn’t see myself as prime leader material. I wanted to be a good nurse, but back then I didn’t see nurses as leaders who could inspire movements or headlines.
What Is The “Right Stuff?” Historically, leaders have been described in heroic terms. Read the literature on the characteristics shared by leaders, and you might conclude that they are some combination of the following traits: intelligent, responsible, persistent, perceptive, self-confident, sociable, articulate, dominant,
determined, cooperative, trustworthy, dependable, friendly, tolerant, influential, motivated, outgoing, upright, tall, and masculine. Although some of these traits seem to apply equally to women—being responsible, trustworthy, and friendly—others clearly do not. Men are typically regarded as agents of change—assertive, dominant, authoritative, competent—whereas women are viewed as more communal—warm, sympathetic, kind, helpful. You can imagine women being perceptive more than dominant, and this difference gives women leaders a documented advantage in settings or positions that place a premium on collaboration and a disadvantage in those that value toughness. But on the whole, leader stereotypes remain predominantly masculine, which induces a kind of schizophrenic thinking if you are a female nurse: You’ve absorbed all the descriptions of leadership and nursing and may feel fundamentally split between wanting to be a trailblazer and a nurturer, with the two seemingly irreconcilable though they are not in reality. Men in nursing have a problem, too, because even when they are expected to lead, they may feel that they still aren’t permitted to do so in nursing because they’re not seen as sympathetic enough. In more recent times, the leadership literature has seriously questioned the longstanding exclusive emphasis on whether the person in charge has the right stuff on the grounds that leaders are substantially influenced by the situations they
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Angela Barron McBride, Ph.D., RN, FAAN encounter, including their ability to harness their followers. In this view, a person might be an effective leader in one situation but not in another one. Tagliareni and Brewington (2018) prefer the notion of “roving” leadership whereby everyone is expected to be a leader depending on challenges and circumstances.
“Admitting that you are a leader takes considerable self-assurance but owning up to having leader-like virtues may be even more difficult, particularly if you have been raised to be modest and self-effacing, as many women have.” However, even those who think that a cataloging of attributes isn’t enough to explain leadership tend to put forward their own lists of desired traits. And those lists can be off-putting because they usually include more positive attributes than most ordinary people see themselves as either possessing or acquiring in a lifetime devoted to selfimprovement. Admitting that
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you are a leader takes considerable self-assurance but owning up to having leader-like virtues may be even more difficult, particularly if you have been raised to be modest and selfeffacing, as many women have. In recent years, I heard a Latina physician who was a semi-finalist for a prestigious grant answer the question “We are going to have a hard time selecting next year’s awardees from this talented pool, so tell us what makes you special?” with “Oh, the pool is talented and I don’t think I’m any more special than anyone else.” Needless to say, the final decision didn’t go in her favor, because she was judged to lack the pluck required to put herself forward in this competitive situation. But it isn’t just women who may have a tendency to be unassuming. A man who comes from a culture that emphasizes collectivism (e.g., Native Americans, Asians) is more likely to have been schooled to act deferentially than someone taught to think more individualistically.
When You Are Expected To Be The Best—But Simultaneously Also Expected Not To Be Self-Important… Nursing has not been untouched by the fascination to break leadership down into certain attributes of personality and character. Like other fields, our profession has studied acknowledged leaders to try to figure out what the accomplished have in common. Intrigued by the subject as a result of their experience in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Executive Nurse
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Salary Survey Special Issue
Fellows Program, Houser and Player interviewed 12 nurse leaders who were widely recognized for their achievements and concluded that each was visionary, scholarly, resilient, committed, courageous, responsive, creative, innovative, thoughtful, and humble. Although their positive regard for humility runs counter to the preferential weight usually given in the leadership literature to dominance, their selection of that trait does demonstrate a dilemma for many nurse (and female) leaders: They are expected to be the best but simultaneously also expected not to be self-important. You see some of the same competing forces in a recent study of personal attributes expected of nursing deans. They are expected to have vision, courage, and passion, and simultaneously be facilitating, sharing, and supportive.
The more that leaders are defined as innately special, the more we can excuse ourselves if we’re not like them and rationalize our passive behavior by saying, “I’m not cut out to be a leader.” I find it useful not to think of leaders as destined to succeed, because thinking of them as born that way keeps them beyond reach. The more that leaders are defined as innately special, the more we can excuse ourselves if we’re not like them and rationalize our passive behavior by
saying, “I’m not cut out to be a leader.” If we think we can grow the dispositions and skills they have over time, then the focus is on what we’re going to do to move in that direction and moving forward occupies our attention. This produces better momentum. For An Effective Nurse Leader, Practical Intelligence Is More Valuable Than A High IQ The reality is that nurses as a group have in large measure what leaders are supposed to possess. First and foremost, we are taught to value problemsolving (i.e., the nursing process), systems thinking, and the common good. Even if some of us aren’t extroverts, we are all socialized to develop empathy, value interpersonal relationships, and respect cultural differences, all of which are central to emotional and social intelligence. Integrity is a core leadership trait, and Americans have given nurses the highest marks when asked to rate the honesty and ethical standards of various professions for nearly two decades.
described in military structures as applying knowledge gained from experience to the solution of everyday predicaments, could be a definition of nursing. Effective problem-solving is what is needed for a changing world with complex social problems and that competency is at the heart of our practice profession. It is important to remember that practical thinking is as important, if not more important than IQ, when it comes to ensuring a productive future for society because real wisdom is the use of one’s abilities for the common good, but to do that you first have to take yourself seriously so you can be taken seriously by others.
Angela Barron McBride is a Distinguished Professor and University Dean Emerita at Indiana University School of Nursing, was designated a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing and has received honors and awards throughout her career. Her study of ways in which nurses can exert leadership in medicine-dominated and male-dominated settings led to her award-winning book The
“Real wisdom is the use of one’s abilities for the common good, but to do that you first have to take yourself seriously.” Given the competitive nature of admissions to nursing schools, today’s nurses do not lack academic intelligence, but their test scores may be less critical to their leadership potential than their strong practical intelligence. Practical intelligence, which has been
Growth and Development of Nurse Leaders (now in its second edition).
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