Bringing the Nurses Back

Same here too.

Seems like every other student is a nursing or pre-nursing student at the community colleges here.
I figure my cow town graduates well over 250 traditional nursing students from about 10 nursing schools.
That is not even counting the bachelors to BSN programs and what not.

Where do they all go? They certainly can't be employed in my state.
There is a lot of marketing for the nursing profession and the nursing programs have been growing pretty fast here, so there is even more expected to graduate every year.

The closest major city is not that far away and it graduates way more than my small town.

Those whose hearts truly aren't in nursing leave the profession. I predict they all end up in administration somewhere.

Might be true but they are delusion. Well, maybe the recession will have turned around by the time they graduate but last time I checked less than half of my class got jobs, and only that many because some got jobs out of the area.

Nursing is not for those whose hearts aren't in it. No good coming into nursing because you want a "stable" job-you have to want to do it otherwise when the reality hits, you'll decide it's time to do something else and use your nursing degree to train for another profession. This is what happens in the UK. It's relatively easy to get into a nursing programme compared to other higher education courses but once the reality kicks in for those whos hearts aren't in it will go off and train to do something else in maybe a year to 18 months on the back of their nursing qualification.
We need to attract the right people into nursing.
Maybe the reason many new grads don't get jobs is because for some of them lack of comittment to nursing comes across in interview, or application process. Maybe it's also due sometimes to the number of clinical hours they have in their training.
As a foreign nurse our number of clinical/theory hours from our training is scrutinised before we are allowed to sit NCLEX, but I have no idea what the minimum acceptable clinical hours for either foreign or US trained nurses is.
Wonder if anyone can shed any light on this or how much the clinical hours vary from one US nursing programme to another?

Well said. When I was in school my teacher asked each and every one of us why we were in nursing.You know what..more than 50% of the class said that they were in nursing because one of their family members was a nurse.Which is no good reason why you should be one.My teacher asked me and I told her I wanted to service to my community and to help people.She smiled and said thats what I want to hear.People look into nursing for $$$ and stability, yes they are nice but your heart does has to be in it or you just become these grouchy a$$ people who do not like their jobs.That really boils my blood because eventually the patient pays for it.

They might be considering nursing, but nearly all will have 2-4 years in front of them IF they don't get waitlisted, so only a smaller percentage who are really dedicated to this path will enter.

[quote=zntd;3723541]Same here too. You need to check reputable department of employment sources for statistics using higher numbers - like 100s of thousands, not places with 25 nurses graduating from each of 10 schools.....

Seems like every other student is a nursing or pre-nursing student at the community colleges here.
I figure my cow town graduates well over 250 traditional nursing students from about 10 nursing schools.
That is not even counting the bachelors to BSN programs and what not.
Many nursing graduates quit soon after graduation, to have families, or upon finding they really don't like the work in realistic settings, rather than clinical ones.

Where do they all go? They certainly can't be employed in my state.
There is a lot of marketing for the nursing profession and the nursing programs have been growing pretty fast here, so there is even more expected to graduate every year. Check attrition rates.....

The closest major city is not that far away and it graduates way more than my small town.

Wow-I was worried that my UK training (which was classed as certificate level) wouldn't be enough for visa screen, but now I can see that with 3,500 clinical and 2,000 theory hours I needn't have worried.
That was before nurse training moved from Hospital schools of nursing into Universities and became either Diploma or degree level. They have far fewer clinical hours now, but I can't find the exact requirements.

I found it hard enough as a new Staff nurse, so it must be really scary if you only have 540 hours of clinical practice.