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NurseWords.com
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Are we doing your homework?
I would imagine that the impact is that colleges and training facilities are seeing more applicants than openings and now they are becoming more able to weed out the losers and only accept the best candidates.
And they are making a ton of money, they are literally tripping over the cash. Just like the IT training schools did in the late 90′s.
How did the nursing shortage happen?
Years ago the degree nurses started pushing for a degree to be the entry level for registered nurses. That meant closing down all the three year diploma programs run by hospitals. Great idea but there were no where near enough 4 year programs to make up the difference so they “compromised” by allowing 2 year degree RNs. The idea was they were suppose to be able to graduate and then go on and get their bachelors.
Problem was they did not open up enough of those programs either so there was a net loss of programs and the total number of nurses coming out was less than needed for a growing nation. Also, many 2 year degree nurses saw no need to go back and get their bachelors. They were getting about the same pay and it was not worth it.
So now we do not have enough four year degree nurses and that means not enough master level nurses. Thanks to another little oddity of the college system, they feel that to teach a bachelors program you must have a masters degree.
So if a nurse only has a bachelors degree, that nurse can only teach at a two year associates program. Catch 22.
Not only do we not have enough nurses, we do not have enough bachelor nurses and thus, not enough master degree nurses.
But you have to admit, they sure created a shortage and the pay is great. The down side is in order to get enough nurses out there, they are turning out associate degree nurses like crazy, sometimes with LESS than 2 years of training.
All the complaints they made about the three year diploma programs are still there with the 2 year nurses, and add to that, they come out of school full of book learning but little actually bedside training. They all need an internship of 6-12 months, which must be provided by the hospitals.
They should have left the programs in the hospital as that system worked for 100 years. The new system is only making the shortage worse.