U.S. Nursing Shortage
For many years, a great amount of men and women of all nationalities have considered nursing as a perfect career choice and most of us, at some point or another in our lives have needed the care of a specialized nurse. However, it isn’t a secret that as rewarding as this career may be, or as necessary to the population as it has proven to be, there has been a nursing scarcity in the United States for many years now, starting to show since World War II. Studies have proven that around thirty states are suffering the lacking of nurses to fill in positions in hospitals. Also, long term care facilities are missing a great amount of nursing staff to provide even the most basic care, not to mention home health agencies which are refusing new patients’ admissions due to not having the field staff to provide nursing services. Researchers have investigated the causes of this shortage, coming up with a few that have affected greatly the nursing world.
Various factors have been underlined as the key issues causing this shortage in the nursing world. New, competitive, attractive and lucrative careers being offered have stolen the spotlight from nursing. Starting since their teenage years, many men and women are looking forward to a career that will improve their quality of life and be compensatory at the same time, but the health care system of nursing is falling behind on both of these. Also, these new professional alternatives being accessible to women have shown them new career options that weren’t available before. For this reason, less high school graduates are opting to enter nursing school presenting a decrease in enrollment percentages. On the other hand, colleges and universities have had to decline qualified applicants to the nursing program due to having an unavailability of educators. Higher benefits can be found by educators on other areas and many are choosing to leave teaching to the side. And lastly, this lack of younger generations entering the nursing world, have risen the average age of a nurse all across the United States. In the next 15 years half of the professional working nurse in the U.S. will reach retirement age.
Strategies must be placed in track to start working towards one same goal, returning nursing to being an appealing career to many more Americans. Government, hospitals, healthcare centers and the media have united to create a more tempting image of the nursing world to those who are beginning their professional lives and are standing in the