why o why??

Hyper_toph_emia · Sep 8, 2009

Well it's simple. There aren't enough masters level and up nurses to account for all the students. There are laws that state minimum teacher to student ratios. I'm not sure if its the same everywhere but here in AZ I believe its a maximum of 10 students per teacher. Just keep trying. You'll eventually get in.

elkpark · Sep 8, 2009

There's not that much demand. There are lots of people who want to become nurses, but the "shortage" is largely hype (not entirely, but largely). Take a look around this site, at how many new graduates are talking about how they've been unable to find a job, any job, after six months or a year of searching ...

The concern in education is not just availability of qualified instructors (although that is a big issue), but also availability of clinical sites. Many areas are now saturated with nursing programs, all needing to do clinicals at the same time that hospitals and other healthcare agencies are consolidating and streamlining their operations. The last time I taught in a BSN program, a few years ago, there were two BSN programs, two diploma programs, and several community college programs in the immediate area, all needing to provide the full range of clinicals for their sizeable student bodies. It wasn't too big a problem for med-surg clinicals, but scheduling clinical for the specialty rotations was a nightmare every term (I taught a specialty). Many of the clinical experiences ended up being, IMHO, of very poor quality and limited value for students, because of the weird hours or limited exposure/experience, but the schools pretty much had to take what they could get from the few hospitals and agencies that were willing to have students. Even if schools of nursing were able to double their student body tomorrow from a faculty perspective, in most cases they would not be able to accommodate those students' need for clinical experience.

However, there are lots of opportunities out there. If you really feel that nursing is what you need to be doing, I'm sure there's a way that you can make that happen! Best wishes! :balloons:

naenae1979 · Sep 11, 2009

Thank u! I knew nothing of the teacher/student ratio. I live in po-dunk Mississippi, and here we are having anywhere from 3-4 hundred (yes I said hundred) students apply to any single nursing program. And... They can only accept 35!! I guess I am just bitter b/c I have applied and applied and still nothing! Nada! But, I feel maybe this is my time! I have actually been in a program before, and for some reason or other it just wasn't the right time for me. So I am taking a new approach this time!! Once again thanks for the explanation;)

UVA Grad Nursing · Sep 11, 2009

For us, it is a resource issue (both in terms of faculty and in terms of clinical sites).

Under Virginia BON mandates, clinical sections can be no more than 10:1 for prelicensure students and 6:1 for post-licensure students. Even that ratio is a bit high considering the high acuity (our primary clinical site is a academic medical center and Level I trauma hospital with 600 beds). Because of patient (and student) safety reason, we choose to limit clinicals to 8:1. Several years ago, there was talk in the state legislature of raising the clinical ratio to 15:1 (something that many nursing faculty lobbied against because of safety concerns).

UVA Medical Center is also the only hospital with inpatient pediatrics for 75 miles. 3 ADN and 4 BSN programs use the acute peds units for their clinicals. There are nursing students in Peds (and OB) from 0700-2300 seven days a week. Yes, there are groups there on Sundays and until 11pm after which nursing students may drive 75 miles back to their dorms. The area schools could only grow in size if we either exempted students from having to do pediatrics or OB clinicals, by cutting down the hours (giving students only half the clinical experience we do now), or scheduling students (and clinical faculty) from 11p-7a.