Nursing Shortage????

There's a shortage of nurses who are willing to work for certain wages and under certain conditions. I live in a major metropolitan area in Texas that is home to 6 million people, and a shortage exists here. However, I know of a town in East Texas that has a major surplus of nurses with the low wages to accompany. This town has several issues that contribute to a nursing glut:

1. Two schools of nursing in the same town: one ADN and the other a BSN. These schools are constantly churning new grads into the job market every few months in a city where their services aren't really in demand.

2. According to sociological studies, the vast majority of the nursing grads in small towns are inclined to continue living in the small town after becoming licensed as nurses. These students are "location-stable," and often hang around the same area for a lifetime. Most do not move away to the big cities or other states where nursing shortages are more dire. Thus, the nursing glut intensifies.

3. Nursing is considered a "good job" in small towns and rural areas that are devoid of other lucrative industries. These men and women simply cannot leave nursing for another career if they burn out, because there's nothing else for them to do. A burned-out nurse in a big city can swap careers if he/she is creative enough.

Since this thread is directly related to nursing issues, I moved it to the General Nursing Discussion so it will hopefully accrue more responses.

I live in central west Texas, the city I live in has 3 universities and a community college that has nursing programs. They are churning new nurses out every year. We don't have an over abundance of nurses, since most of them move to the metroplex shortly after graduation.
Since we have so many new graduates each year, the wages here are pitiful. The ones who don't move to the metroplex stay here for a couple of years in order to pay back the hospitals that help with tution.

The location where I lived when I went to school was very similar to where TheCommuter described. All the same reasons why there wasn't a "shortage" existed. They were very picky about new grads and made you feel lucky if you got *any* job there after graduation. Forget it if you wanted to go into a specialty. Where I live now, the shortage is slightly higher although still pretty nonexistent. I work in an ER that the manager claims is fully-staffed. There are not enough hours for everyone to go around. Some of the FT staff even get 4 hours cut off of a shift per 2 weeks here and there because of this. It is a great place to work and most of the nurses (about 2/3) have worked in this ER for 5-10 years or more. So where I am in the south, I do not think there is much of a shortage at all.

IMHO, there is a nursing shortage, especially in experienced nurses - as we are aging rapidly.

My opinion is that the short staffing is primarily due to administration trying to save a few $$ and not hiring to fill empty positions, but giving heavier assignments to nurses - and because nurses fear for their jobs, and have a hard time "sticking together" - they take the abuse and the bigger assignments and work harder and harder until they leave. The wheel keeps turning.

So long as we allow ourselves to be door mats, then door mats we will be. I'm just as guilty. We need to get together, there is power in numbers, and strive for safer assignments and better staffing, not just for ourselves, but for our patients.

I'll stop here before I get to how the insurance companies contribute to this cycle!!

Just an observation, it is too small of a sample but so far most of the responses have been from Nurses working in right to work states. Although the part about location stable has merit.

Massachusetts is supposed to have the highest number of nurses per capita in the country, but we still have a shortage of trained nurses. New grads will not find a job that easily, especially associate degree new grads.

There are definitely more new (er) grads working out there than experienced nurses - percentage wise compared to years past.

I have noticed a trend over the years among nurses. It seems that each year's graduates are ready to quit sooner. The nurses that I know that have been nurses for 30 yrs were nurses for 20 yrs before they really got to the point that they were sick of it. Nurses that have been nurses for 20 yrs took about 10 yrs to get sick of it. And now we are getting to where nurses are sick of it after only 2-3 yrs.

I don't know exact numbers of how many of the "newer" people that are burning out quickly went into nursing "for the money", but from my observations, the people who went into nursing for more altruistic reasons seem to have been able to hang on longer before getting burned out. I also did not see as many people getting into nursing mostly for the money back when I went to school. So I do believe that one's motives for wanting to be a nurse contribute heavily on how soon you want to call it quits.

There are definitely locales where there are no shortages of bodies because of people being reluctant to leave and area and the area being unable to support so many nurses.

The places that do have shortages of "bodies" are usually the places that have a large number of licensed nurses who are not working or are working in other fields. The last time that I checked the TX BON stats for the county I lived in (and this was about 5 yrs ago), 18% of licensed RNs were not working as nurses. That number did not include LVNs, of which there were also a large number of in that county.

From what I see, most people go to nursing school and have no idea what they are getting themselves into. A lot of people think that we make huge money. Then they graduate, do the job for 1-2 yrs and quit. I don't blame them. Hospital administration doesn't support and will never support nurses. Nurses don't support each other. There are so many other jobs that pay well and at least are more respectful, and have less liability. Hospitals rely on new grads, even if they stay 2-3yrs, then they get another new grad and it goes on and on. They don't bother retaining older, experienced nurses, on my unit, couple of very good nurses works only 2-3 shifts per month and they work in a non-hospital setting.
That's just my observation from my 3 yrs nursing career.