Do you think the nursing shortage is disappearing?

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It feels to me like more and more new nurses are coming out of schools. We've hired, in the last four months, twenty new grads in our two critical care units alone. There will always be certain areas that run short - dialysis, long term, psych, etc...but acute care doesn't seem to be hurting as bad as in the past, perhaps. I know the economy is bad and perhaps that's more important to these hiring freezes that seem to be ongoing, but do you think more incoming nurses have quite a bit to do with that also?

Specializes in Government.
A few never even worked as Nurses after they graduated.

About a third of my class never made it to the one year mark. We lost another third by the second anniversary. I was the only one still working as an RN at year 10 and 20.

I try not to think about it but wow, lots of dashed hopes and breakdown of expectations vs reality.

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My personal opinion is that there is no nursing shortage,only a lack of nurses willing to work in sub-standard conditions.

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Specializes in OR, CVOR, Clinical Education, Informatic.

There is not, and never was, a nursing shortage. There is a shortage of positions that pay what we are worth, have flexible hours, and allow us to do our jobs as NURSES. I went to school to nurse patients, not the chart and the not the lawyers. I have the right to expect pay that is compensatory to my unique skill set, and to spend time with my family just like every other professional. Yes, I went into nursing knowing it is a 24/7 job, but I did not sign up for 16 hour shifts or 120 hours of call every other week.

Make the compensation (pay, benefits, schedule, staffing ratios) match the job requirements and see how many nurses come back to nursing.

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Specializes in Critical Care,Recovery, ED.

The current nursing shortage is both regional and secondly to large part on the working conditons of the employers. If working conditions are poor then there will be burnout /high turnover with subsequent short staffing. Like a poster above there isn't a nurse in my department whose has been with our current employer for less then 15 years. It basically a good place to work, not that it has always been perfect.

The shortage will be what I've just mentioned with the addition of the demographic shift of boomers retiring (yeah!)

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I like the point someone made about bedsie nursing being just a stepping stone to grad school, CRNA, etc. Part of the main reason we've lost so many experienced nurses (and therefore hired twenty new ones) is that so many are going on to Master's Degree programs...where the money is...where the respect is...where the autonomy is. I can't tell - and don't have to because I'm sure you identify - how absolutely angry I get when administrators constantly patronize, belittle, disrespect, and abuse staff nurses all in the name of inching up their Press-Ganey's. Case in point: for years, dietary has been our lowerst PG score, hovering around 75. Nursing care has always rated over 90 percent. So in staff meetings, what do we get every month? More tips on how to pamper and kowtow to patients.."scripts" that tell us what to say to patients...reprimands for having a PG score of "only" 91 percent, and being promised that if we can just get our score up to 95, we'll all get nice bonuses!! And yet they keep serving the same crappy food without bothering to invest any money to improve it. It's that kind of treatment that just boggles my mind!

I had a patient the other day who is the spouse of a retired physician who used to be on staff at our hospital....every day - every shift - the house supervisor came to "check" on this patient and their spouse...asking "Is everything going well, do you need anything, any concerns?" Almost hunting for some dirt on their own staff or something. They would come check on this "VIP" but do they give a rat's a-- about anyone else? Would they come check on me if it was me in the hospital? Of course not! :banghead:

I have no desire at this time to ever go to grad school, and I'm still not sure whether I want to pursue a BSN or not. But I certainly can't fault those who want to, instead of putting up with being treated like indentured servants. Of course, that's going to create a market oversaturation of its own, but that's another story....

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