No Nursing Shortage At The Present Time

Despite rampant claims of a critical nursing shortage, many cities and states in the US are actually suffering from the opposite problem: a surplus of nurses. The intended purpose of this article is to challenge the widespread belief that a current nursing shortage exists. Nurses Announcements Archive Article

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CT Pixie, BSN, RN

3,723 Posts

I am constantly telling fellow students in my ADN program that there IS NO SHORTAGE!! As an LPN I've watched the job postings go from pages and pages to a few over the last 5 years. Of course, they insist there is...'it's all over the news'..blah blah blah. Told them go on line and do a search for RN's..very few jobs and those that are there want A) EXPERIENCE B) a BSN or C)both a BSN and experience.

I recently saw on our local news that a wealthy couple gave millions to 'address nursing shortage'...ahhhh! Seriously?! Their idea is sponsering doctoral programs so that more nurses can earn their degrees so that they can teach so then more people will be able to get into the nursing programs.

"The couple established the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence, which now supports 59 nursing doctoral students at nearly two dozen schools. The program will be expanding this fall to include 200 scholars across all 50 states.

Tens of thousands of people are turned away from nursing programs each year due to a shortage in faculty, Barbara explained. Nurses earning doctoral degrees will be able to fill the shortage of teachers, and will also be able to do advanced clinical work."

Read more:

Couple gives millions to address nursing shortage - GreenwichTime

VickyRN, MSN, DNP, RN

49 Articles; 5,349 Posts

Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.

Excellent advice, Patti_RN!!!!

Specializes in Hospice / Ambulatory Clinic.

California has sunshine and in relativity high wages. It's too tempting for people to move here with their brand new license. They'll come on here and ask advice, get it but move anyways.

It's too tempting when your unemployed to listen to someone who tells you nursing is a guaranteed job with a great wage and enroll yourself in school asap. Why would they listen to us. We are telling them their sure thing is not so and sending them back to their original fate. I can see why they would choose fake optimism instead of realistic cynicism.

I was midway through school when the banks started to crumple and my future crumbled before my eyes. I got a job straight away but it was bottom of the barrel stuff in my eyes but compared to my cohort who were getting the empty barrel it was ok.

In the end where every career path seems iffy its easy to understand why people would follow optimism no matter how unrealistic.

rayne215

106 Posts

Now...with the passing of "obamacare" does one think the demand for nurses to increase?

i "was" a nursing student, but i switched for cardiac sonograpgher ...i hope im doing right thing

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN

1 Article; 20,908 Posts

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Thanks Commuter.......I have been posting that there is NO nursing shortage for quite sometime now. Yes the nursing "shortages" and "surpluses" are cyclical but this one is different. The plethora of graduates far exceeds need. Part of the figures for the "Nursing Shortage" was calculated on the model of mandatory staffing laws that was going to "pass" nation wide like the one in CA. That failed to happen for the economic crisis derailed all attempts for there suddenly was more important matters a foot!

Now with a bad economy, one like the Great Depression, has many flocking to the "recession proof" nursing profession. Nurses returned to the bedside becasue their husbands can't find work......many can't retire becasue we lost our retirement funds that we were forced to place our money into.......crashed. (now I know why my grandfather didn't trust banks). Hospitals are now in the drivers seat and they won't give it up easily.

Yes this too shall pass....but I don't ever think it will be the same as in the past where nurses named their price, hours and benefits. It will moderate, but with the push by the acedemics to perpetuate the lies and continue to collect tuitions, ignoring the saturated market to line their own pockets, but the face of nursing has been changed at least until after 2020.

Specializes in Hospice / Ambulatory Clinic.

Unfortunately I think also we are going to find that all those new grads that don't get experience will not add to the labor pool for nursing so in a few years the number of employable nurses will be much less than the number of licensed nurses.

Specializes in Trauma, ER, ICU, CCU, PACU, GI, Cardiology, OR.

needless to say, it saddens me to read this type of articles because it's a story that repeats itself over and over all through the states, but somehow the nursing schools keep producing more nurses like a factory assembly while only a few might find work as rn's others end up paying student loans without any gratification. having said that, the only solution will come when all of the "baby boomers" begin to retire of old age sad but true, it's a sign of the times for nursing.

Fiona59

8,343 Posts

There isn't a shortage of nurse bodies in my area, just nurses who want to work weekends, evenings and nights. New grads don't want to start off with small part time positions and pick up extra shifts. Instead they cherry pick what day shifts they can leaving us meanies to keep working extra nights, evenings and weekends.

I have been guilted into working every long weekend this year. Yes, it's made enough money to pay off my mortgage five years early but I'm fed up of calling our casuals to be told "I don't work shift or weekends".

Music in My Heart

1 Article; 4,109 Posts

Specializes in being a Credible Source.

There is no shortage of licensed nurses, to be sure. I will point out, however, that there is a substantial number of licensed nurses, both new and otherwise, who have little business being in the acute-care business.

I would prefer to see both the entry requirements and the licensure requirements raised... with the presumed result that the number of new licenses granted would drop.

While I work with some fabulous nurses, I also work with some that I wouldn't let within ten feet of any but the most stable of patients... and sometimes not even then.

It appears, however, that even separating the wheat from the chaff, that there are still far too many new grads pumped out of the system each semester.

Leonardo Del Toro, RN

1 Article; 730 Posts

Specializes in "Wound care - geriatric care.
So what is the ultimate fate of those 36% (or 43% in CA) of RN's who have been unable to find nursing jobs for a year or more? Conventional nursing wisdom says that new nurses have a "golden year" after graduation in which to find jobs or risk being unemployable as RN's. Could it be that more than one-third (or apparently more than 40% in some areas) of nursing students are essentially out of luck in terms of their career choice? If so, given that the actual cost to train a new RN generally significantly exceeds the tuition and fees paid by the student, we are are squandering a huge amount of money. That however pales in comparison to the staggering waste of human potential such a scenario represents.

What will these "non-practicing" RN's do in the long run if a career in nursing is no longer open to them? Can it truly be the case with such large - and growing - numbers of trained but unemployed RN's out there, that there is truly a nursing shortage looming? Are we as a country willing to accept a "lost generation" of unemployable nurses?

The real truth is that no one knows what will happen in the future. One must remember that until 2008 hospitals were still giving out sign up bonuses. It all changed in the course of 3 months. One thing I know about health care is that it has an unstable quality by nature, what is one way in one moment is the opposite in the next. A patient is doing well now and a moment later there is a crisis. The fundamentals of health care are still in place and people get sick unexpectedly and census can switch on a moment's notice; the population is growing and major urban centers are opening new facilities. You have to look at the big picture. Here's another scenario (quite possible too). Here I'm predicting the future but this is also based on past crisis which had similar conditions. In a couple of years from now...

Let's pretend the economy get better, not just a little but actually a lot better. Now the retired / one day a week nurses who showed up to work when the economy tanked leave just as they came. Quickly. Along with them the "about to retire" nurses will leave, those who were just hanging in there. The other possible group to leave is the burned out nurses who have been grilled during the time when hospitals had the upper hand and forced them to work harder because they could. So if that happens we'll be back to prior 2008 when staffing nurses was not exactly easy but there's something new here. We are suddenly back to a nursing shortage but worst because 80% of nurses with experience are at retiring age, so even a small percentage loss of these 80% is significant. To make matters worse only a limited amount of new nurses have been trained for the past 6 years. This problem could be aggravated also by the dismantling of systems such as foreign nurse job network, and travel nurses, yes they would quickly be back but it takes some time. Many new grads went into other areas of health care and are not returning others left the profession entirely. Yes there are many new grads out there but how long does it take to really train a nurse until they are safe? At least one year, two is best.

In the other side of the battle field are the increased census produced by the new patients who are newly employed citizens with their health insurance who have accumulated a few health issues and now need urgent care. Let's not forget the baby boomers which were not so bad a few years ago but now are really beginning to show up. Last but not least is the newly implemented Health Insurance Exchanges Obamacare which by now are full steam ahead producing millions on never insured before patients and many are train wrecks. I have spoken with many senior nurses who think this is very possible scenario.

netglow, ASN, RN

4,412 Posts

marcos, I get where you are coming from, but there is the part about how no government is going to fully be able to control what corporate healthcare decides to do. Lots of businesses today are very very cash heavy - but still they refuse to hire. They have figured how to skate by putting employees and patients at huge risk and are now very comfortable doing so. In other words, lots of companies are now dancing with the devil and they all think it's a blast. It's no longer a pride thing to run a good outfit. The execs are living better than ever before. It works for them, but not for current employees or those begging for jobs.

There is not a thing you can do to get a huge hospital network to hire - unless it's mandated ratios nation-wide. There is nothing on the table to make that happen. Remember, these large healthcare networks have lawyer think tanks working their butts off trying to get the next profit angle. If there ever was a mandate, they'd retaliate by reducing wages to poverty level for all (there will always be retaliation).

netglow, ASN, RN

4,412 Posts

I also agree with ♪♫ in my ♥. But ADN/BSN/MSN means nothing in reality.

Make the NCLEX case-based in part. Make that test a knock down drag out test, with some pathophysiological based written essays about the disease process. Also, how about: "Given such and such a diagnosis and s/s, the physician has prescribed the following medications. Describe each medication's complete pharmacological impact on the patient (physiological pathways and therapeutic effect targeted and pitfalls nursing should be watchful for). - or something of the like.

Doesn't matter ADN/BSN/MSN - you do all have access to, and should be able to take the same test. The information is available to all.

I thought the NCLEX was very easy> I was disgusted.