This is why I started a conversation in this site about Foreign Nurses. In Oklahoma City, OK when you go to any hospital around you will find Nurses from different ethnicity with thick English accent.

JonZ said:

According to a recent PwC study, the federal government is projecting a shortage of one million nurses by 2020. This will come during a time when the Baby Boomers will be reaching retirement and American health care needs will presumably be at a zenith. What should be done to encourage more people to become nurses?

I am studying at interamerican campus an associated in arts, because of my career. My major is nursing. I would like to be a good nurse because I like to help people. I had in GPA 3.7, but actually is 3.2. I am very worry about my GPA because many people said that if the GPA is lower than 3.5 I won't be a nurse. I don't understand it, because my principal interest is not money, is become a good nursing. So, if my GPA is lower I can't be a nurse WHY? May be, I am wrong with this information, and there is some university that they don't care about GPA and I can be accepted. In the summer I'll finish my associate in arts, and I'll need to transfer to an university for become to be a nursing. What can I do if my GPA is going down because of my grades like "B's", It is not a bad grade. I need an oportunity & I'll continue my career. I need more information about nursing.

I know a lot of you are talking about money and burn out as the reasoning behind nursing shortages.But sad to say death is the number 1 reason I know of. Most of the nurses I know who left the field could no longer handle the trama of getting close to patients then they died. They either quit or got hard i.e. burned out plus always working short staffed or never getting holidays off didn't help.Face it a nurse is a crazy person who is a glutton for punishment but I would do again in a heart beat.

Forgive me but while I was reading the post, I find it funny....funny because you are having shortage with 1 nurse to 4-6 patient ratio, ( i just hope I get the picture right). I am a Filipino and I was working as a nurse here in the philippines in one of the government hopitals, we too are having shortage of nurses and believe me - our ratio? 1 nurse to 30-70 patients plus 1 nursing attendant. There are 2 main reasons why we are having shortage, first, almost all our nurses including those who are fresh graduates are hired to other countries and second is wage. Imagine we are paid 12000 pesos per month and that is roughly 260 dollars a month and if you compare it to what the agencies said - starting wage is 21 dollars per hour, wow, you wont be thinking twice. I was just comparing two pictures here when I am not in your foot so I hope I wont be hurting anyone.

caremother said:

why do they say they need nurses but when a new nurse goes out for a job she/he has a hard time getting their foot in the door? I received my license in May and here it is August and I'm still looking. Any insight?

To the above new nurses. That is terrible that you are still looking for jobs. Come up to AK you can have my job, just kidding. Please don;t give up, you may have to start out in med surg or ER and this is good for building a base. I have been nursing for almost 20 years now and after a few years, have never had to look for a job very long. I have lived in places with a poulation of 2000 and able to get a really good job. hang in there it is rewarding and lots of variety. Once you get a good solid base in nursing there are many options to find what you like and are good at.

to gailp i agree that nursing is too dispersed. We put more money and focus onto state licensing and specialties. I think licesing should be regulated by ANA and have national licenses vs state by state or even regional would be better. I do not think it is dysfunctional, just too dispersed, deluting our efforts and strength.

NURSING SHORTAGE YES THERE IS ok BUT.......................

I am a Registered Nurse with 32 years experience(25 years in ER and Telephone Triage/Urgent care and last 5 yrs in Public Health/Occupational Health environments ) seeking full time employment with benefits and I am having a real hard time finding work in Florida and..
..
I think I see why there is a nurse shortage.

Because here's the reasons= I don't have recent Hospital Experience they want it in the last 6 mons,I don't have a QRP certification which one position said I needed,I don't have Home Health experience and they want a nurse with experience,my ACLS needs updated(BLS only needed in last jobs I had )so I can't get an ER ,Telephone Triage or Urgent Care position because these positions always say ACLS required,
and I dont have a Case Management License required with experience too,and no recent G.I./Endo experience but went on an interview anyway but didn't get the job because no recent experience...etc.......

OH YAH and NOW I almost forgot I NEED TO KNOW SPANISH too for alot of the jobs especially in telephone triage.

AND I don't have my BSN so I don't count now as a nurse I guess....
I never got my degree not that I didn't want to but because always working full time mostly in ER over my
32 yr career and my nursing school where I graduated as an RN was not a degree program at that time in 1975 And right now I can't get it that quickly because I am not wealthy and I am spending all my time looking for full time work to make ends meet.

AND at my last Interview couple of weeks ago at a nursing home really Burned Me OUT ha ha hee hee

Because During the interview The Nurse Manager asked me "What was I doing There? "
I said well....... "I need full time employment and with my experience I know I can do this type of work"
She said "Well we are looking for someone with experience in Nursing Home Care"
Ok thank you I said... Geezeee That made me feel really small and unworthy
and (She knew I did not have the experience in this field because I told her on the phone when the interview was set up I didn't)

.... So.... I guess I'll give up on being a NURSE after a 32 yr career.

I have applied for some positions with my experience but they are all for LPN's not RN's I am sure because they don't want to pay an RN salary. I am even willing to take a cut in pay at this point so I can work because before too long I am not going to be able to pay my rent and be on the street.

SO GEE I WONDER WHY THERE IS A NURSE SHORTAGE?

Alot of good nurses I know just gave up because of the all politics........

What gets me is when a manager or administrator is not a nurse and hasn't a clue what nursing involves. I think all managers and nursing administrators should be nurses first!

abqmalenurse: I agree with you wholeheartedly! see additional comments under group: LPNs are nurses too!

It has been very interesting to read all the posts. Every post makes a valid point about the nursing shortage. There are so many different ideas regarding how to improve the so called "nursing shortage".

I reside in Raleigh NC. I have an Associates Degree in Medical Assisting and have been practicing as such for nearly twenty years. I am passionate in what I do and enjoy my job. I have worked Peds, OBGYN, Family Medicine and Urology. Recently, I decided I wanted to pursue my RN and am actively working towards my goal. I work fulltime and currently cannont afford not to work while I attend classes. Fortunately, there is a community college that offers a weekend/night ADN program, but as mentioned in previous posts, there are many more applicants than open seats. The admissions process is brutal as the college uses a "Point System" based on your GPA and the HOBET. If you don't pass the HOBET, regardless of your GPA, then you are no longer eligible to enter the program. The Fall class of 2007 had over 500 applicants for a mere 25 seats. Personally, what I find most discouraging, not only for me but for others in similar situations, is during the application process, not once does Admissions ask about any previous patient contact or experience. It's as if my twenty years of patient care doesn't even exist. Of course, I know that not all Medical Assistants have Associate Degrees and have a variety of skill sets, but at least let me share what concrete experience I do have and maybe by doing so, I can move towards my goal of being an RN.

For the time being, I am still taking classses, mostly humanities, as I work towards applying for the next RN classes. After this semester, I don't have any other classes to take, except for the actual Nursing Classes. It seems "unjust" that one can have great GPA, pass the enterance exams, have twenty years experience, a true love for patient care and STIlLL not be able to get into a Nursing School.

Thanks for letting me vent. Even though there is so much negativity about becomeing an RN, it is truly my passion. It's great to have a forum, such as this, to continue to learn and grow.

this graet nation will face a large shortage of nurses.so the solutions are:
-minimizing the tution for students.
-the nurses should be highly paid.
-international students who learnns nursing in this country should be given a green card to let them work here.
-god bless america.

I recently read an article about a hospital in my state that is actually paying the full tuition for nursing school. You have to agree to work for the hospital after graduation with no expectation of repayment. The class graduates in January, therefore, they have new nurses at a different time of year when lots of hospitals are full with respiratory patients. It looks like a win win situation to me, and if I wasn't already a nurse I would be checking this out.

Thanks for the post Tammy Gartley - CRNAs seem to be in heavy demand since they get paid more than any other specialty. Good luck Tammy!

The "nursing shortage" is just a side-effect to what is happening nationally or even globally...the problem is multi-faceted; and it's not just nursing, it's the whole healthcare community. If you work in a hospital based system, just take a look around and ask some of the other members of the allied health care community. It is affecting physicians, Paramedics, PT's, RRT's, Radiology, nuclear medicine...etc... The healthcare system is in a state of disarray and needs to be re-vamped from stem to stern. Ask yourself the following questions, why is a visit to the doctor's office so expensive?, for that matter, why are are medicines cheaper across the border?, why are the Emergency Rooms overcrowded all the time? Why is it difficult to make an appointment and see my pcp today?? The nursing shortage is where we as Nurses feel it the most, I will not refute that. But it begs the question, WHY?? The nursing shortage is felt on all aspect of nursing from the shortage of nursing programs to shortage of Masters-Prepared nursing educators to the availability of Nurses in the workforce. Longevity of younger nurses in the field and the retention of present day nurses are not just buzz-words but actual real-time everyday issues. We may also want to focus on the fact that as the nursing shortage grows so will it have a detrimental affect on the care that we as nurses are able to provide. The shortage will increase and so will pt mortality...The American Association of the Colleges of Nursing have posted the following indicators and issues leaning towards the Nursing shortage:

"The shortage of registered nurses (RNs) in the U.S. could reach as high as 500,000 by 2025 according to a report released by Dr. Peter Buerhaus and colleagues in March 2008. The report, titled The Future of the Nursing Workforce in the United States: Data, Trends and Implications, found that the demand for RNs is expected to grow by 2% to 3% each year.
In a statement released in March 2008, The Council on Physician and Nurse Supply, an independent group of health care leaders based at the University of Pennsylvania, has determined that 30,000 additional nurses should be graduated annually to meet the nation's healthcare needs, an expansion of 30% over the current number of annual nurse graduates.
According to the latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published in the November 2007 Monthly Labor Review, more than one million new and replacement nurses will be needed by 2016. Government analysts project that more than 587,000 new nursing positions will be created through 2016 (a 23.5% increase), making nursing the nation’s top profession in terms of projected job growth. www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/11/art5full.pdf
According to a report released by the American Hospital Association in July 2007, U.S. hospitals need approximately 116,000 RNs to fill vacant positions nationwide. This translates into a national RN vacancy rate of 8.1%. The report, titled The 2007 State of America's Hospitals - Taking the Pulse, also found that 44% of hospital CEOs had more difficulty recruiting RNs in 2006 than in 2005.
Based on finding from the Nursing Management Aging Workforce Survey released in July 2006 by the Bernard Hodes Group, 55% of surveyed nurses reported their intention to retire between 2011 and 2020. The majority of those surveyed were nurse managers.
In April 2006, officials with the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) released projections that the nation's nursing shortage would grow to more than one million nurses by the year 2020. In the report titled What is Behind HRSA's Projected Supply, Demand, and Shortage of Registered Nurses?, analysts show that all 50 states will experience a shortage of nurses to varying degrees by the year 2015.
According to a report published in November 2004 as a Web exclusive of Health Affairs, Dr. Peter Buerhaus and colleagues found that "despite the increase in employment of nearly 185,000 hospital RNs since 2001, there is no empirical evidence that the nursing shortage has ended. To the contrary, national surveys of RNs and physicians conducted in 2004 found that a clear majority of RNs (82%) and doctors (81%) perceived shortages where they worked." "

To the new and upcoming nurses, I say think globally and become involved because 2015 is not that far away and it is predicted that we will be short half a million nurses... No matter how you look at it or where you work; That's a lot of empty shoes to fill.