Calling Nurses Back to the Field

ByRamona Salotti, RN, BS
Nursing Spectrum
Masthead Date June 16, 2003
http://community.nursingspectrum.com...e.cfm?AID=9742
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We came from throughout the Philadelphia area, 30 women who shared a common bond: We all were inactive registered nurses.

Our reasons for leaving the profession were similar, and familiar — family commitments, professional frustrations, better opportunities in other fields. But the nursing shortage had inspired many of us to reconsider our commitment, and the conference “Re-Discover Nursing,” hosted by NurseSponsorsTM, brought us together.

The daylong program, held at the Wyndham Summerfield Suites in East Norriton, PA, March 14, 2003, offered participants information and motivation to learn about re-entry programs available in the Philadelphia area. Ten healthcare providers that offer RN re-entry programs attended, including health systems, hospitals, a community college, and providers of home health, elder care and dialysis services.

The re-entry programs cost from $550 to $1,300, and their formats vary from group classroom instruction and clinical preceptorships to one-on-one orientation programs designed for new employees. Some facilities reimburse the program fee in exchange for an employment commitment.

Sandra Canally, RN, president and CEO of NurseSponsorsTM, says the conference was the first of its kind in this area. With conferences throughout the US and a website <www.nursesponsors.com>, Canally hopes RNs will be inspired to relaunch their nursing careers. She points to statistics that tell the story of the nursing shortage.

Nearly 500,000 of the estimated 2.7 million licensed RNs are not employed in nursing, according to the 2000 National Nurses Survey.1 More than half of those were in nonhealth-related occupations. About 42,000 inactive RNs are in Pennsylvania.1 Between 1996 and 2000, 175,000 nurses gave up their licenses to practice, a sixfold to sevenfold increase from previous years.1

But pursuit of these inactive RNs through re-entry programs has not caught on in the healthcare industry, Canally says. And there is scant information available about existing re-entry programs. For example, one of the attendees of the March conference admitted she felt guilty about not using her skills at a time when nurses are so desperately needed, but she said she had difficulty finding re-entry programs.

Inactive RNs are “a trained and experienced, but virtually untapped, resource” for remediating the nursing shortage, says Johanna Tracy, RN, BSN, a nurse educator and contributor to the book Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul. Tracy encouraged nurses to write about personal nursing experiences. She used excerpts from the book, which all attendees received as a gift, to encourage us to re-examine our inactive status and consider some of the opportunities available to nurses today.

Earlier, Gloria Donnelly, dean of the College of Nursing and Health Professions at Drexel University, took us back in time to when we first decided to become nurses. With a slide presentation featuring the Cherry Ames, RN, book series, Donnelly, a serious collector of the series, pointed out that Cherry Ames exemplified many of the nursing profession’s core values, which are still relevant today. Cherry portrayed commitment, professionalism, and a focus on patients, along with personal ambition, motivation and organization, and excellent management and interpretation skills, which made her a good nurse.

Some of the women came to the conference after a 10- or 15-year hiatus from nursing, intent on returning to clinical practice. My reason for attending was simple curiosity; after all, I’d been away from the bedside for 30 years. But I came away from the conference reminded of the pride I have felt in being a nurse, and I realized that all nurses are responsible for promoting the nursing profession — even those of us who are no longer clinically active.

The response from the Philadelphia-area conference makes Canally hopeful about wooing inactive nurses back to the field. One attendee enrolled in an RN re-entry program the day of the conference. Within a week and a half, 10 others had taken action as a result of information they received there. Canally intends to track outcomes of the conferences and monitor the percentage of attendees who register for re-entry programs and return to clinical practice.

The next conference in this area will be September 12 in Plymouth Meeting, PA. For information, call (215) 654-9110 or visit www.nursesponsors.com.

Here is a sampling of RN re-entry and refresher courses available in the Greater Philadelphia/Tri-State region.

RN Re-Entry Programs

Albert Einstein Medical Center www.einstein.edu
Dept. of Veterans Affairs Medical Center www.usajobs.opm.gov
Fresenius Medical Services www.fmcna.com
Genesis Elder Care www.ghv.com
Gentiva Health Services www.gentiva.com
Home Health Corporation of America www.hhcainc.com
Montgomery County Community College www.MC3.edu
Montgomery Hospital
www.montgomeryhospital.com
New Courtland Elder Services
www.newcourtland.org
Temple University Health System www.health.temple.edu
Tenet Health System www.teamtenet.com


RN Refresher Courses

Bucks County Community College
Contact: Janet Baker, (215) 968-8324
Montgomery County Community College*
Contact: Albert Tarquinio (215) 641-6347
Northampton Community College*
Contact: Judy Rex, (610) 861-5094
Our Lady of Lourdes School of Nursing
Contact: Dorothy Letizia, (856) 782-2100
Raritan Valley Community College
Contact: Helen Jones, (908) 526-1200, ext. 6688
University of Delaware
Contact: Ruth Hurst, (302) 831-8837
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
Contact: Kathleen Burke, (215) 898-4522
Penn State Hershey Medical Center*
Contact: Valerie Miller, (717) 531-7575
*Also offers RN reactivation course.

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Ramona Salotti, RN, BS, is an occupational health consultant.
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Reference

1. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Health Resources and Services Administration. Bureau of Health Professions, Division of Nursing. The registered nurse population: findings from the national sample survey of registered nurses. March 2000. Published February 23, 2002. Available at: ftp://ftp.hrsa.gov/bhpr/rnsurvey2000/ rnsurvey00.pdf. Accessed March 20, 2003