While the nursing shortage might be negative news for people requiring future medical care, it rates as good news for nursing students planning to graduate and practice in the next 10 years.
“I’m not stressing over job security at all,” said 25-year-old nursing student Atalie Doyle. “People will always be sick. We’re continuing to work with advancing technologies, and we have people living 50 years longer than what they would have in earlier years. We will always be needed.”
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, employment of registered nurses is expected to increase by 21 to 35 percent for all occupations through 2012.
Still, it was not job security that influenced Doyle to enter the nursing field.
“I saw how awesome nursing was for my mom,” she said. “She’s been a nurse for 15 years now, and if I could be half the woman she is, I’ll be so excited.”
With nursing becoming a family tradition, Doyle says she already understands the reason recruitment and retention rates across the nation are so low.
“Nurses are expected to do so much more,” she said. “From what my mom tells me, there just isn’t enough time or not enough people to take care of everything. You don’t have time to do the nice things – the caring part of nursing.”
Nonetheless, Doyle can enjoy the caring role of a nurse as she continues practicing her clinicals at the VCU School of Nursing.
“We’ll give medications and put in IVs while looking in on around five patients,” Doyle said. “Depending on who needs what, if an opportunity arises, we’ll take advantage of it. If a patient needs a bath, we give them a bath.”
Nursing school enrollments have remained steady, according to the Virginia Board of Nursing Web site, even though the number of nursing school graduates in Virginia has declined almost 19 percent in the past five years.
“I can easily understand that,” Doyle said. “MCV lets freshmen in right out of high school and these kids have no idea what to expect. They see things they don’t like and they drop out.”
Joanne Henry, director of VCU’s Community Nursing Organization, said university students do not make up the majority of dropouts.
“VCU has a very low dropout rate,” Henry said. “We are under 15 percent. Community colleges tend to see higher dropout rates.”
Henry said this is because it is easier to get accepted into a two-year program than a four-year program.
“More students will get into the two-year programs so you have more students able to drop out,” she said. “You put a lot more into a four-year program, so you tend to stick it out.”
Doyle pointed to poor instruction as another factor.
“We have had some pretty horrible clinical instructors in the past,” Doyle said. “Some of them really treat students badly. Humiliation does not foster an environment people want to be in.”
Registered nurse Kim Lushbaugh said she agreed.
“When I went through school, you were reprimanded for not asking questions,” she said. “Now it seems you’re reprimanded for asking questions.”
Henry said individualized instruction is difficult for instructors and students.
“It’s stressful,” Henry said. “When you have one instructor and 10 students, it’s impossible to hide that you don’t know something, and yes, instructors will get irritated if you haven’t prepared for that class or clinical.”
To Doyle, a more nurturing and welcoming faculty could attract more students.
“Nursing is demanding – it requires personal commitment,” she said. “But we also need that reassurance from faculty members that we’re doing a good job.”
Lushbaugh said, “I really do feel for the new graduates. There just aren’t enough nurses out there who care enough or have the time to take them under their wing.”