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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Nursing Shortage: Myth Or Reality?

News stories abound about the nationwide nursing shortage. In recent weeks, FierceHealthcare reported that New Mexico is desperate for nurses and plans to spend $220,000 on a marketing campaign to recruit nurses from other regions of the country to work in the state.

NBC in Southern California this week bemoaned the fact that a lack of nursing faculty at colleges and universities would bring the nationwide nursing shortage to its worst levels in recent years.

But FierceHealthcare also published reports this week that makes me wonder if the problem really is a lack of nurses and dearth of students interested in pursuing the profession.

First we ran a story that as the job market dries up for hospital nursing positions, more nurses are taking lower-paying jobs in rehabilitation centers, patient homes and outpatient clinics.

And on Thursday the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) released survey results that indicate nearly 60 percent of recent nursing school graduates with bachelor's degrees had job offers at the time of graduation. And by four to six months after they received their diplomas, almost 90 percent of the graduates were working as nurses.

So is the nursing shortage a myth?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is always a shortage of pretty nurses.

Anonymous said...

PRMC has a slew of ads for nursing staff. So why the layoffs?

Anonymous said...

The Nursing school graduates are not willing to work for the smaller salaries that are currently being paid.

Also, considering the cutbacks (PRMC comes to mind), a shortage may be what brings the salaries up.....

Anonymous said...

To many nurses go into nurse management positions instead of working as a floor nurse.

Anonymous said...

There is NOT a nursing shortage. There are plenty of nurses - we just don't CHOOSE to work in a hospital where we are overworked, disrespected by physicians and administrators, and underappreciated. Nurses are educated professionals, but not treated as such. And hospital salaries could be better when you consider the amount nurses in other nursing fields are getting -fields such as case management, traveling nurse, legal nurse consultants, rehab nurses, etc.- which is where the hospital nurses are going. On top of that, the hospitals are bringing in foreign nurses and paying less and because of language and cultural barriers, subnormal care is being given. Just some thoughts from a nurse who now refuses to work in a hospital setting due to a total lack of professional respect, overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated.