Nursing School Programs

The nursing shortage in some ways benefits nurses, because it means that nurses are highly sought after by employers,  but it can be hugely stressful for them as well.

When hospitals can’t hire enough nurses, the nurses that they do have end up working a lot of overtime, which is physically exhausting. Who do you want to care for you - an exhausted stressed-out nurse or a well-rested nurse?

A study by the American Organization of Nurse Executives and Nurseweek Publishing shows that 93 percent of nurses surveyed feel that the lack of time that they are able to spend with patients is a major problem, and that this problem is caused by the nursing shortage.

Hopefully our legislature will start providing more funding to hire nursing teachers. If nursing teachers were better paid, more nurses would choose to be teachers, which would mean nursing schools could finally start serving enough students to address the nursing shortage.

Once you graduate from nursing school you will have a wide variety of places to look for nursing jobs. Where do most nurses end up working after graduation?

According to a survey by the Department of Health and Human Services, hospitals are by far the biggest employers of nurses. 56.2 percent of nurses work at hospitals. Next comes community and public health settings (such as schools) at 14.9 percent. After that comes ambulatory care settings, which includes physician’s practices, nurse-based practices, and health maintenance organizations. 11.5 percent of nurses work in these settings. Only 2.6 percent of nurses were employed in nursing education - which helps explain the nursing shortage.

Here, according to the survey, are some of the other places that nurses are employed: Federal administrative agencies, state boards of nursing, health associations, health planning agencies, prisons and jails, insurance companies, and other types of employment such as pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies.

It’s almost the end of January 2008, so if you are thinking of applying to nursing school for the fall semester of 2009, now’s the time. Some schools start nursing classes several times throughout the year; traditional schools start in the fall.

Here’s what you need to do:

Get together your list of all of the nursing schools that you are interested in applying to.

Contact each one and find out the application deadline for this year, and what type of entrance exam they have.

Find out what book they recommend to study for the exam, get it, and study study study until you are comfortable with it. Take a few sample tests, and time yourself - give yourself as much time as the nursing school will give you.

Order your transcripts from high school, previous college, etc. They can take several weeks to arrive, so order NOW - and make sure that you get a sealed official copy sent to the school that you are applying to.

Apply to multiple schools to better your chances of getting in.

Most people these days realize that there is a severe nursing shortage and that it’s only going to get worse, but not everyone realizes why this is so.

Here are five reasons why hospitals, doctor’s offices, schools, clinics, and other employers all across America, in small towns and big cities, are scrambling to find nurses:

1.) Nursing teachers aren’t paid well enough. This is one of the main causes of the nursing shortage. It’s hard to attract nurses into teaching positions because private employers such as hospitals and clinics pay much better. So colleges turn away many, many qualified nursing school candidates every year because they just don’t have enough nursing teachers.

2.) Nursing teachers are aging out and retiring. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, nursing school professors average age is 52 years. And when they retire, there will be even less nursing teachers, unless steps are taken to offer a considerably better salary.

3.) An aging baby boomer population creates a need for more nurses. As people age they obviously develop more health-care issues and need more healthcare assistance.

4.) Fairly high turnover in the nursing profession. Every year, a significant percentage of nurses leave the profession that they thought they’d love. The job is stressful, nurses are in constant fear of losing their licenses, and many states don’t have mandatory nurse-patient ratios which protect both the nurse and the patient.

5.) An aging nursing population. The present average age of registered nurses is 43.3 percent, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

A professor at the University of Central Florida Health Services Administration just did a study which shows that hospitals with higher RN staffing levels have lower patient mortality and less post-operative complications than hospitals with lower nurse to patiant ratios.

Go figure, eh?

Florida, unfortunately, is not one of those states that has a maximum nurse-patient ratio, unlike California.

The Chamberlain College of Nursing has announced that it will open a Phoenix, Arizona campus in March. This new nursing school will offer a Bachelor’s of Science program, which apparently can be completed in three years. They also offer RN to BSN programs, which can be completed in as few as 3 semesters, they say. Having a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing can earn you more money.

The school is holding an open house in January for students interested in attending the first class. Potential nursing students who are interested should check out the website of the new nursing school.

A recent study released by the Florida Center for Nursing shows that there is a serious shortage of nurses in Florida. There is a vacancy rate of 9 percent overall hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, public health departments and hospices, the study found.

No-one is surprised that there’s a nursing shortage in Florida or anywhere else. Schools do not pay nursing teachers enough; most nursing teachers need to have at least a master’s degree, and an experienced registered nurse with a master’s degree can make a heck of a lot more money working for a private employer than they can for a school

And if there aren’t enough nursing teachers, then not enough students can be taught. While employers are desperately trying to hire nurses, nursing schools are turning away qualified students. In Florida in 2007, an astonishing 60 percent of qualified applicants to bachelor’s of science in nursing programs were turned away!

Although this is bad news for employers, it’s good news for nurses who want to practice in Florida. And if you’re not a nurse yet but you want to be, then use our suggestions to get past those nursing school waiting lists, and then go get your dream job!

A recent study by the company of Martin, Fletcher showed that hospitals are really rolling out the red carpet in their efforts to hire new nurses. 88 percent of hospitals offered a substantial sign-on bonus, in the high thousands of dollars, the study on health compensation showed. Other benefits offered by hospitals hoping to recruit new staff include generous relocation packages (average over $5,000, the study showed), tuition reimbursement deals, and payment for continuing education.

However, nurses should investigate the hospital that they are considering working at; is there a high turnover rate? If so, why? Is it in a neighborhood/city that the nurse wants to be in for at least a few years? (Generally when a hospital offers a financial incentive to come work for them, they require the nurse to stay for a certain agreed-on period of time in exchange for it.)

The fact that a hospital is offering a lot of incentives to work for them, though, does not necessarily mean that they are a bad place to work. There is such a severe nursing shortage everywhere that even great facilities are scrambling to recruit new nurses.

When you are looking at schools that offer an online nursing degree program, how can you be sure that the school is legitimate? After all, everyone is jumping into the nursing education business these days, to take advantage of the fact that traditional nursing schools have huge waiting lists.

Online nursing schools are often more expensive than traditional nursing schools, and you don’t want to throw aware your precious time and hard-earned money.

Well, here’s the key: the most important thing for you to do is to contact your state Board of Nursing and make sure that they accredit your program. There are some very good online nursing degree programs that are accredited in some states and not others. If your state’s Board of Nursing does not approve that online degree program, then there is no point in attending, because when you graduate you will not be able to sit for the NCLEX-RN (the all-important test that you MUST pass in order to be licensed as an RN.)

If your state Board of nursing does approve the online nursing program that you are interested in, than you are good to go!

Registered nurses in Califoria have a huge advantage over many other states. The state has a law that limits the number of patients that can be assigned to a registered nurse. This protects both the patient and the nurse. Not surprisingly, hospital administrators lobbied vigorously against the law, because it cuts into their profits. Oh well, so sorry, is all we have to say. We’re glad that law was passed, because it’s made California one of the best work environments available for registered nurses. And all other states should follow suit.

Here’s the problem with NOT having a law mandating nurse-patient ratios: If you, as a registered nurse, take on an assignment with too many patients and something happens to one of those patients because you failed to provide them with care…it’s considered to be your fault. And if you don’t take on the assignment you’re given, how long do you think you’ll keep your job? It creates a very unpleasant Catch-22 for nurses who work in understaffed facilities. Take on more patients than is safe and pray that nobody dies on your watch while you are attending to another patient, or lose your job.

Texas does NOT have a patient-nurse ratio, although they have unsuccessfully lobbied for one in the past. Here is what the Board of Nursing has to say about a nurse’s legal responsibilities:  “Standard 217.11(1)(T) holds the nurse accountable to accept only those assignments that are within the nurse’s education/training/experience, as well as his/her physical and emotional ability. If a licensed nurse accepts an assignment, he/she is responsible for the care delivered.”

If there is a nurse’s lobbying group in your state and they are pushing for a law that would mandate nurse-patient ratios, you should definitely consider joining in, signing petitions, and doing whatever else it takes to get that law passed. Your license, and your patient’s lives, may depend on it.