There is no nursing shortage at the moment. The reasons for this are because of the economy.
-Nurses that were off doing other things like being at home with the kids, working another career, running their own business, or what not have returned to nursing. This is because husbands lost jobs recently or are not making money like they used to, or the former nurse lost their job in another career and came back to nursing. I have seen many nurses taking refresher courses. Families are having a harder time making ends meet these days and are having nurses who have been out of the workforce
-Nurses who were planning on retiring in the last 1-3 years have not been retiring. There are a lot of nurses holding off on retirement because 401k's have been demolished, home values have declined, and these nurses are waiting for the economy to turn around.
-Nurses who were recently retired within the last couple years have come back to work in one way or another for the same reasons above.
-There are less people using healthcare. People who lost jobs have also lost health insurance. This is causing people to use healthcare less and be more careful about their healthcare spending.
-Healthcare spending cuts. Many hospitals are facing cuts and one of the cuts is hiring freezes and layoffs. Both of which are big news these days. Hospitals are just not hiring as many RN's as they were becuase of cutting costs.
-Nursing schools are touting "shortage" and pumping out so many new grads it is hard for new grads to find a job. I know many new grads that have been looking for work and have not found a RN job like they were told in nursing school. Some of them taking as long as 1 year out of school and still no job. And I live in a major metropolitan area (Seattle) where there are huge hospitals, and 10's of thousands of nurses working. New grads are reluctant to work in sub-acute or long term care because of the stigma and they want a job in acute care. Well, that is not the case. There is no sign on bonuses anymore, there is no shortage right now.
The nursing shortage is looming on the horizon. It will eventually come, just not as soon as was thought. My advice to any nursing student, get a job now as a nurse aide, then hopefully you will have a job at graduation.
Good way to get people to help you; insult the first person who responded to your post.
I'm sorely tempted to treat you in kind, but I'm betting someone else has already said something far more eloquently than I could.
The OP could write a bang-up paper regarding the nursing glut and Nurse Mills (lottery, anyone?) and how this glut in the context of current and changing health care policy, decreased reimbursement, and the need for cheap labor is changing the face of the profession as we know it.
Yeah, kinda bursting your bubble OP. But you need to see things as they are. It does suck being lied to, but for you to find out now is a great thing, better than continue on oblivious to it all. Yes, it's probably gonna be bad when you graduate, but you might get lucky.
You have gained some valuable information today. Show your smarts by challenging the "Nursing shortage" hype. You would be able to find tons of information to dispute it's existence even by searching this board. Many RNs have posted links to stats, and articles on big hospital business and government lobby for one. It's all here, enough to get you started, but it's up to you to do all the legwork and learn a little about how down and dirty healthcare is.
Specializes in Orthopedic, LTC, STR, Med-Surg, Tele.
the topic i obviously picked is nursing shortage
so what i have so far in my outline is because of the shortage in nursing which are compounded and caused by:
- deficit in nursing program faculties are limiting the number of enrollments
- the rise in the elderly population calls for more nurses to provide health care
- increasing stress levels due to insufficient staffing causing more nurses to leave the workforce.
fewer nurses with leadership and management skills are being produced at the baccalaureate level.
and that's where my problem is. i can't think of anything else. i wanted to state another or probably two more reasons in my paper.
Where is this nursing shortage??? If anything, I think the market (pretty much EVERYwhere, if you have read other posts and forums) is oversaturated with new nurses, not to mention seasoned, experienced nurses who can't get jobs.
What deficit in nursing program enrollment?? The ones in my state are extremely competitive, and most have a waiting list.
I think we need more seasoned, experienced nurses with leadership and management skills. Those are not necessarily a result of a baccalaureate education - classroom education can only get you so far in learning how to be a good leader of nurses.
ok statistics aside because whatever, you just want to write a paper and not debate the issue of the nursing shortage-I know you already mentioned nursing faculty limiting enrollments, but how about the quality of the clinical faculty and how that effects the students' perception of the workplace? How many nursing students are unprepared for the workplace and quit within-6 months? 1 year? Because they were inadequately prepared? What about requiring that nursing students spend some time as a CNA or HUC or somewhere in a hospital setting so they are not wasting their time in nursing school? (get their first whiff of c-diff, decide they liked waitressing better, and quit)
And I will agree that your response was a little rude, but so was brownbook's. Leadership does not equate management, and there are leaders and followers in any profession. Not sure of education levels for everyone, but ADN programs do not generally include leadership classes, (it's BS :) but if you are a natural leader, you may not need them. Good luck with your paper!
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Where is this nursing shortage??? If anything, I think the market (pretty much EVERYwhere, if you have read other posts and forums) is oversaturated with new nurses, not to mention seasoned, experienced nurses who can't get jobs.
What deficit in nursing program enrollment?? The ones in my state are extremely competitive, and most have a waiting list.
I think we need more seasoned, experienced nurses with leadership and management skills. Those are not necessarily a result of a baccalaureate education - classroom education can only get you so far in learning how to be a good leader of nurses.
But we are expensive and are being put out to pasture.
somerandomRN
2 Posts
There is no nursing shortage at the moment. The reasons for this are because of the economy.
-Nurses that were off doing other things like being at home with the kids, working another career, running their own business, or what not have returned to nursing. This is because husbands lost jobs recently or are not making money like they used to, or the former nurse lost their job in another career and came back to nursing. I have seen many nurses taking refresher courses. Families are having a harder time making ends meet these days and are having nurses who have been out of the workforce
-Nurses who were planning on retiring in the last 1-3 years have not been retiring. There are a lot of nurses holding off on retirement because 401k's have been demolished, home values have declined, and these nurses are waiting for the economy to turn around.
-Nurses who were recently retired within the last couple years have come back to work in one way or another for the same reasons above.
-There are less people using healthcare. People who lost jobs have also lost health insurance. This is causing people to use healthcare less and be more careful about their healthcare spending.
-Healthcare spending cuts. Many hospitals are facing cuts and one of the cuts is hiring freezes and layoffs. Both of which are big news these days. Hospitals are just not hiring as many RN's as they were becuase of cutting costs.
-Nursing schools are touting "shortage" and pumping out so many new grads it is hard for new grads to find a job. I know many new grads that have been looking for work and have not found a RN job like they were told in nursing school. Some of them taking as long as 1 year out of school and still no job. And I live in a major metropolitan area (Seattle) where there are huge hospitals, and 10's of thousands of nurses working. New grads are reluctant to work in sub-acute or long term care because of the stigma and they want a job in acute care. Well, that is not the case. There is no sign on bonuses anymore, there is no shortage right now.
The nursing shortage is looming on the horizon. It will eventually come, just not as soon as was thought. My advice to any nursing student, get a job now as a nurse aide, then hopefully you will have a job at graduation.
Good luck.