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Juanita Tate
The United States is in the midst of a nursing shortage that is expected to intensify as baby boomers age and the need for health care grows. In the most basic sense, the current nursing shortage is simply a widespread and dangerous lack of skilled nurses who are needed to care for individual patients and the population as a whole. Juanita Tate, chair of the School of Nursing at 黑洞社区, explains the scope of the nursing shortage.
Tate: "In the last decade, the shortage of registered nurses has appeared, it's grown, it's intensified, and into the foreseeable future it shows no sign of letting up."
There are a number of reasons why the nursing shortage continues, as Tate explains.
Tate: "We continue to have a nursing shortage as hospitals and other health care institutions respond to the needs of aging baby boomers and, at the same time, nurses themselves are aging, and so they are retiring and leaving the work force. In the meantime, additional institutions have opened, more hospitals, and we have higher and more complex care requiring more nurses."
But the problem is far more complex than merely aging baby boomers.
Tate: 鈥淩etention of nurses is another part of the bigger picture. As the shortage has intensified, those nurses who are working have to work harder, and many times under unattractive conditions. This may lead to early retirement, dropout, part-time work, and this only intensifies the vicious cycle."
The shortage of registered nurses in the U.S. could reach as high as 500,000 by 2024, according to one report. And according to the latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published in the November 2007 Monthly Labor Review, more than 1 million new and replacement nurses will be needed by 2016. But Tate says numbers alone don't tell the whole story.
Tate: "This shortage of nurses is more than just a shortage in terms of numbers. It's also a shortage in terms of the appropriate educational level for the many functions that nurses have to carry out."
According to Tate, the work of the world's estimated 12 million nurses is not well understood by the general public.
Tate: 鈥淭he general public many times still misunderstands the role of the nurse. They think of them as someone who just is a technical worker, who functions under the orders of a physician or the hospital administration, and don't understand that they have their own practice and practice under their own license."
It seems obvious that more people have to be recruited to the nursing profession if the shortage is to be alleviated. But that's not as simple as it sounds.
Tate: 鈥淥ne of the issues in recruiting individuals into nursing is that nurses have traditionally been women, and women now have many other opportunities in law, medicine, business and those other careers. And so, they have gone in those areas, and at the same time, males continue to not find nursing an attractive option."
Nursing may not be the only profession facing a shortage, but it's one that has a direct and personal impact on society, as Tate explains.
Tate: 鈥淲hile many professions and work force groups are facing shortages because of the retirement of baby boomers and the demographics of our society, when you need a nurse, you need a nurse. And so, the shortage of nurses impacts society in a much more direct and personal way. If you have somebody sick in the hospital, or if you're sick, and you need a nurse, you need them now."
Thanks for listening. Until next time, this is Joe Kleinsasser for 黑洞社区.