what do you think is the best way to alleviate the nursing shortage?

Question

e.g., increasing nursing school faculty, creating new nursing schools, increasing salary/benefits, etc.

Answer 1

I'd say more faculty/ schools. I think the waiting lists tend to scare off potential nurses, but i think salary/ benefits should stay about the same. the pay is great, the benefits are fine, and some places even offer extra vacation time/ sign on bonuses...I'd say the lack of schools/ teachers may be the main problem.

EDIT: They're already paying up to and over 60k a year in some places...you want to pay them as much as doctors, who require 8 more years of study? I cant see it, and I'm looking to go into nursing.

Answer 2

Honestly, there isn't much you can do. Increasing faculty and school programs cannot be done at this point, because there simply are not enough clinical sites to offer students their required clinical hours for graduation. Hospital experience is critical to a nursing education, and as long as the hospitals can only accomodate so many students on a unit, that's where the bottleneck occurs. Sure, the nurses on the units love having the students there (extra hands for helping), but they cannot have 20+ students on a unit where there are only 15 beds and 4-5 RNs on staff.

Also, the single biggest factor contributing to the shortage is the population of sick people - the baby boomers are hitting retirement age, we are a nation of obesity which brings with it all kinds of illnesses like diabetes, hypertension, etc., we have a growing population of drug users/abusers, mental illnesses are on the rise, etc. There is no way to staff for these kinds of increases in pt. demands, even if you did have the capacity to increase nursing school spots.

Answer 3

decrease the patient load so that the nurse can take better care of her patients, ever try to take care of 9 needy sick post op patients, i have, the stress will kill you, more staff less patient load, equal happier nurses & better care of the patient

Answer 4

There are long waiting lists but if they paid better starting wages that would help also.