uly 17, 2006 Karen Mask was cool. For the past two years she’s kept up a grueling schedule — studying nonstop. All her efforts and sacrifices have led to this day — her first as a nurse at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa.
If the rookie nurse was nervous, she didn’t show it. “It’s a little less nerve-racking for me,” says the 37-year-old Chandler resident, who as a nursing student spent last summer working on the hospital’s pediatric floor.
Mask is entering the nursing profession in the midst of a critical shortage that health care professionals believe will get worse before it gets better. Nursing school applications are up, but supply is dwarfed by demand. There aren’t enough nursing programs or instructors to go around, and hospitals don’t have the space to accommodate hands-on instruction.
Mask, who has a degree in psychology, is one of the fortunate few who actually got into a nursing program in Arizona. Some applicants will spend up to 12 months on a waiting list. In May she graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the accelerated nursing program at Arizona State University’s Polytechnic Campus in Mesa.
Full Story: Amid nurse shortages, students learn medicine, determination on ... [East Valley Tribune,AZ]
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