nursing shortage...

What a great idea- are you looking for nurses near retirement to reply to this thread? I have taught almost 10 years, am NOT near retirement but can say that teaching, especially clinical is one of the most physically difficult jobs. My own clincal practice- I just have 3 patients and I have nursing assistants. When I teach, I have 8 students (and they have 8 patients who each has a co-RN). So I am juggling helping give and coordinate care with 24 people. It's intellectually and physically exhausting. My office partner is 72(!) and doesn't teach clinical. She simply could not keep up with the pace and the technology. IMHO you'd need to target nurses who are still able to keep up, but who have the desire (and patience!) to teach. :twocents:

My state (wyo) is currently doing an extensive study on the 'nursing shortage.' What they are finding is that there isn't necessarily a problem graduating enough students, the problem lies in retention. RN's don't stay in jobs very long. There are probably alot of reasons for this, ranging from poor working conditions, better pay elsewhere, ect. And alot of RN's just choose to work for the agencies or PRN and I think that has alot to do with the 'appearance' of a shortage. And facilities that have decent pay and working conditions do not have a 'shortage.'

Gee, what a novel concept. This is what most of us experienced nurses have been saying for a while. I have a friend in WY who hasn't been a nurse nearly as long as I have and she even sees this.

I have debated often in the last few years about giving up my license. I am getting away from clinical work and have started down the path to my plan to get out of clinical work. I am not alone either.

If you need to look at numbers, check out the TX BON stats that they collect regarding the number of RNs licensed compared to the number that report still working in nursing - the results are confirmation of this concept being very true.