To be a Goldman-Sachs Nurse

Beka - For the past 4 weeks I have been reading in the Financial Times about the incredible bonuses handed out to Wall Street executives. The employees at Goldman-Sachs received bonuses ranging from $600k for low-end executives and up to $53 million for their CEO. Just think what nurses could do with all those bonuses!

I can’t imagine what I would do if I was given a bonus of $600k. Buy a tropical island? A castle in the Alps? Realistically, I really do know what I would do with that amount of money --  I’d create research grants that would unravel the mysteries of movement disorders, specifically dystonia. Research about dystonia has not been moving ahead at all. I’m not entirely sure if it is due to lack of disease awareness by the general public or if it has more to do with nonprofit boards, their scientific advisors, and the actual decision-making and allocation of essential monies. Is the money really going where it should be going -- to feasible research studies?

Reports indicate that there are about 300,000 people suffering with dystonia in North America. Few research grants have gone to pure epidemiological studies or to qualitative research to help answer the question “Who are these people with dystonia?”

“Who are we as a patient population?” is a question that has haunted me since my own diagnosis with dystonia. Are we really all disabled, unemployed, and depressed? These are questions that nurse researchers can answer the very best.

I think $600k is a vast amount of money. And I wonder where all that money is going and how it is being used by Wall Street executives? Certainly not for dystonia or for nurse researchers….

So I think I’d like a new job: Available: RN for Goldman-Sachs.