The Worst Jobs in Science: The Sequel

flyingtoaster writes "For the second year in a row, Popular Science published their annual countdown of the worst jobs in science. This year's list includes Anal-Wart Researcher, Iraqi Archaeologist and Landfill Monitor. And you think your job's bad?" We also linked to last year's list.

Comments

Nurse is on the list, thats really really BAD!

[BrookHarty]

Anyone find it funny the most common job on there is Nursing? The nursing role has changed from working with patients to Medical Assistants. They hire 10-15 MA's to 1 Nurse in most clinics. And then to top it off, they dont pay the Nurses for the years in school, and hard work, and they get no respect for managing the MA's ontop of normal nurses duties.

What a shame.

In our Internet-based summons for readers to top (bottom?) last year's "Worst Jobs" list, nurses nominated themselves in droves: "Still a no-respect profession. Doctors treat you like slaves." "The pay is substandard for all the training." "Just look at the current shortage." Indeed, the government estimates that we're short 110,000 nurses, and that by 2008 we'll need half a million more.

Numerous studies echo the dissatisfaction of our nurse readers. Nurses are fleeing the profession because of stress, long hours, low pay and lack of advancement opportunities. The cost? A recent University of Pennsylvania study found that surgical patients at hospitals with the worst nurse-staffing levels (ergo the most overworked nurses) have a 31 percent greater chance of dying. If this trend doesn't improve, we might soon find "patient" topping our list.

Re:Nurse is on the list, thats really really BAD!

[MmmDee]

And, yes I am a nurse.

Then thank you for the job you do.

The "other" nursing specialties do require more training and that's part of their career path (like everyone else). Primary Care Nurse Practioners make on national average $69K. I dated a NP for 7 years (she was a "floor RN" for four of those years), she now makes $85K and a friend of hers is a NP for a hospital specialty department and makes $100K. The friend has no call and the former gf gets paid extra for each weekend she works ($1500 for Fri to Sun--double that if it's a holiday). The median salary for a CRNA is $118K.

Unlike many 9-5 jobs (or 7-3), many jobs in the medical profession are not 40-hour weeks. Many are much more (especially if you count call nights/weekends). When I was a resident, an 80-hour week was considered short (this was of course before resident hour limitations initiated in New York).

Last year's list

[quizwedge]

The link mentioned in the previous slashdot article no longer works. Compliments of the WayBackMachine

Re:Grad student

[the gnat]

And compared to people in biology, we get paid a lot; I know someone who gets $12,000 a year.

Ummmm. . . I'm in biology, and I get $24,500 starting out - more this semester because I'm also teaching. This is about the most any school pays, actually, but the top biology programs are all pretty comparable. For a single 20-something, it's good money, even if I took a large pay cut to go back to school. Students on external fellowships make even more: the NSF now pays upwards of $30,000 a year, and more if you teach.

Frankly, I couldn't be happier with my position, despite the attempts of our local grad student union to convince us that we're oppressed. However, after I graduate I can either go consult (shitloads of $$, but no science or fame), work for a biotech or big pharma (good $$, okay science, probably no fame), or become a perma-postdoc (no $$, awesome science, probably no fame). I could get all three as a faculty member at a good university, but there are vastly fewer jobs available than candidates, and you have to be some combination of brilliant, extremeley focused, well-connected, and just plain lucky. I'm well-connected, but only reasonably intelligent, and I can't focus worth shit, so unless I get really lucky I'm not getting one of those jobs. Sort of depressing, but at least I like the work I'm doing.

Re:Consequences of Bush's Iraq War

[cold fjord]

Things are a litte more complex than that little blurb in the article suggests. Saddam's interest in archaeology tended to be self-serving, such has when Saddam rebuilt Babylon:

In 1982, Saddam's workers began reconstructing Babylon's most imposing building, the 600-room palace of King Nebuchadnezzar II. Archaeologists were horrified. Many said that to rebuild on top of ancient artifacts does not preserve history, but disfigures it. The original bricks, which rise two or three feet from the ground, bear ancient inscriptions praising Nebuchadnezzar. Above these, Saddam Hussein's workers laid more than 60-million sand-colored bricks inscribed with the words, "In the era of Saddam Hussein, protector of Iraq, who rebuilt civilization and rebuilt Babylon." The new bricks began to crack after only ten years.

The problems in Iraq aren't new. Many of the problems in Iraq date back to at least Saddams invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War.

Prior to the Persian Gulf War, archaeologists working in Iraq were forced to close down excavations when Iraq's August invasion of Kuwait made the situation to dangerous to continue....

And following the war, looting of archaeological sites increased dramatically as Iraq's impoverished citizens used sometimes desperate means to make money in light of the economic sanctions placed on Iraq by the western world.

Saddam's military made a practice of stationing military units by antiquities to protect them from attack. There are many recorded instances, including these gems:

...In early February 1991, for example, Saddam parked MiG fighter jets at a Babylonian ziggurat at Ur to deter coalition forces from disabling them during the Gulf War. By Nineveh, the ancient capital of the Assyrian empire, he built air bases and weapons factories. According to archaeological scholars from the University of Chicago, an 80-foot mound containing many ruins of ancient Nineveh also housed an oil storage tank. During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam used the site for anti-aircraft batteries because it was the most elevated spot in the area....

In contrast, at the height of the bombing campaign the Pentagon produced aerial photographs of the Al-Basrah mosque. They showed clearly that the Iraqis had destroyed the mosque for propaganda purposes. While coalition forces had bombed a target some 100 yards away, leaving the mosque unscathed, Iraqi engineers sliced off the dome in the hope of duping journalists that the U.S. had been responsible for the destruction.

The desecrations of burial grounds in Iraq aren't anything new. They happened to burial groundsafter the first Gulf War too.

The looting of the museums was also overstated as well.

FWIW: In Afghanistan, the Taliban was destroying priceless cultural artifiacts as being anti-Islamic. The US intervention in Afghanistan stopped that, and the new government is committed to preserving such artifacts.

Re:Religious radicals?

[connorbd]

Please look at talkorigins.org. No legitimate scientist doubts that evolution happens; it's how it happens that gets debated.

K-25 demolition

[deblau]

I grew up in Oak Ridge. If you think that a building dripping with radiation is bad, check out the Secret City scenic railway. Doesn't seem unusual, until you discover where the station is. For some real giggles, here's an excerpt from the bottom of the page:

Note: Due to additional security procedures following the events of September 11, 2001, the Secret City Scenic Excursion Train is currently boarding at the back gate of the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), formerly known as the K-25 facility. This situation will continue until we are advised otherwise by security officials at ETTP.

Yes, folks, due to heightened security, we're having Joe Public board the train right next to the abandoned nuclear facility. You know, the one with radioactive barrels filled with Uranium scattered willy-nilly out in front.

Scary as all that sounds, I've actually been on the train ride. It's very pleasant, the rail cars are antiques, and the tour guide's history of Oak Ridge during WWII was interesting. (Checks rad badge again. No problems.)

It's a shame to see the old girl go down, really. She's done a lot in her time in "Happy Valley". K-25 was at one time the world's largest building. (For a sense of scale, have a look at the two-story townhouses at the bottom of the pic. If you look carefully, you'll see that the two buildings in the center are actually just one building.)