After dreaming about earning a degree to work in a hospital setting as a registered nurse (RN), I was very disappointed once I began working in a hospital.  Why?  Because I graduated and went to work in a hospital in the middle of a severe nursing shortage.  This put all nurses, not just RNs, in a bad situation where they had to do twice the work to assure the safety of all the patients.  If you have ever been a patient in a hospital, have you ever considered how many staff members were on duty?   When a light is tujrned on and the response is slow, it may be that all the nurses are tied up in other patient's rooms.