[Nursing News]

Nurse Elisabeth Bojang works in the new wing of the intensive-care unit at Oklahoma State University Medical Center in Tulsa. The state will face a projected shortage of more than 3,100 hospital-based registered nurses by 2012, according to the Oklahoma Department of Commerce.

More... Nursing Shortage: Prescription for disaster: Need for nurses called critical (Tulsa World)

[nurseinlimbo]

I find it interesting that while the article clearly states how important we are, we are still treated like warm bodies to fill a shift. Managers don't treat nurses like the professionals that we are, and we are not compensated adequately for the lack of home life, crappy hours, OT, hostile work environments and so on. Maybe if we were treated better, paid better, and had better working environments some of those nurses who chose not to work would come back, and some of the nurses who leave the profession within the first 5 years wouldn't leave.

I know I personally would not be working anymore in this profession if it were not for the student loan debt and the mortgage I have obtained since. It has been a severe dissappointment to me so far, and I don't see it getting any better, as the shortage can only make things worse.