Faculty shortage hurts nursing

[cougarnurse]

This isn't really new, but..... Faculty shortage hurting nursing - NJ.com

For years, stu dents have been told nursing was a safe and stable career choice, a field where workers will be in high demand in coming years due to a looming nursing shortage.

But at The College of New Jersey and other nursing schools in the state, many prospective stu dents have found themselves being turned away from the career many considered ironclad.

For TCNJ's nursing class of 2009, there were 440 applicants for only 60 seats, said Susan Bakewell- Sachs, dean of the School of Nursing, Health and Exercise Science. That may have frustrated many who are looking at a narrower field of employment options in this uncertain economy.

Despite the shortage of seats in its program this year, TCNJ has in fact worked to admit more nursing students.

Bakewell-Sachs said that between 2000 and 2006, TCNJ effectively doubled its nursing program enrollment, after a national survey released in 2000 predicted a dire nursing shortage by 2020, creating a growing interest in nursing.

Since that peak period, applications to the school of nursing have plateaued at around 440, Bakewell- Sachs said, "but we still have far more applicants than we accept."

TCNJ is far from alone when it comes to such acceptance issues.

Across New Jersey, more than 50 percent of the state's 43 nursing schools were forced to limit student capacity because of a lack of faculty this year, according to a re cently issued nursing report.

Bakewell-Sachs and other health officials at a legislative hear ng May 28 said these capacity is sues are often caused by a critical lack of nursing faculty, the profes sors and clinicians training tomorrow's nurses.

According to Bakewell-Sachs, nurse faculty members must have at least a master's degree in nursing, with four-year institutions often desiring nurses with doctorate degrees.

However, she said, "nurses tend to practice first ... and get advanced degrees later," with only 9 percent obtaining a master's de gree and a mere 1 percent going on to earn their doctorate.

Because of this faculty shortage, more and more nursing students are being turned away from state nursing programs that are often understaffed and overcrowded, compounding the nation's growing nursing shortage.

Linda Martin, the dean of Science and Health Professions and the director of nursing at Mercer County Community College, said her school has been lucky to remain fully staffed.

"We have as many faculty as we need for the students enrolled in our program. We're very fortunate in that regard," she said.

Though MCCC's nursing program has escaped the problem of understaffing, Martin said the school faces other challenges in increasing enrollment to keep pace with the estimated nursing shortage.

"Our biggest obstacle to increasing enrollment is the lack of available clinical sites, because we share the sites with other local programs. We need hospitals is what we need," Martin said.

Clinical sites at hospitals provide students with hands-on, practical nursing experience, something Martin said is invaluable. However, state guidelines require one staff member for every 10 students at a clinical site, so finding enough space and staff for such sessions often proves difficult.

"I wish I could take a million students, but I don't have anywhere to put them," she said. "Simulation has taken a new role, but nothing replaces direct patient care. You can't buy that kind of experience."

Students aren't the only ones suffering from the lack of qualified nurse educators.

Fewer graduates means fewer nurses on the floor at hospitals and other care facilities. According to a New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing report titled "Situation Critical: Closing the Nurse Supply Gap in New Jersey," 53 percent of the more than 22,000 N.J. registered nurses surveyed said "there were not enough RNs on staff to provide quality patient care."

[cougarnurse]

Continuation of story:

According to testimony from hospital officials, nursing professors and the report, nurses today are older, work longer hours and may be putting off retirement due to personal financial difficulties stemming from the current economic recession.

"Currently, nursing in general is experiencing a bit of a lull in the great shortage we thought we were going to have," said Susan Lorenz, the chief nursing officer at the University Medical Center at Princeton (UMCP).

However, Lorenz, along with several officials at the legislative hearing, cautioned drawing any long-term conclusions from this temporary lull, saying the recession may be masking what is still a huge shortage problem.

Lorenz said that at UMCP, more nurses have been postponing retirement and others have been picking up extra hours due to the recession and related financial worries, giving the illusion that the nursing shortage is not as dire as has been predicted.

Sandy Quinn, the director of the Capital Health School of Nursing, agreed that major issues will begin to emerge in the nursing community when the recession ends, due in part to an aging work force.

"When the economy improves they're really going to start to retire and then we're going to be in a real fix," she said.

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, argued that because of the recession, aggressive programs to target this shortage are needed now more than ever.

"There is a real danger that the short-term easing of the nursing shortage caused by the recession will create the false impression that we've found a solution to the more serious nursing shortage that lies ahead," she said.

"We have not," she continued. "Layoffs and older nurses staying in or returning to the work force postpone, but do not fix, the problem. Unless we act now, New Jersey and the rest of this nation are heading for a nursing catastrophe that will affect us all."

Because of the growing nursing and nurse faculty shortage, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce launched a five-year, $22 million "New Jersey Nursing Initiative" at the May 28 legislative hearing.

The new program will help train nurses to become nurse faculty members, increasing the state's critically low number of nursing professors and educators in order to ease the projected nursing shortage.

Under the Faculty Preparation Program component of the new initiative, New Jersey Nursing Scholars will be given full tuition and fees to achieve either their master's or doctorate degree, as well as a laptop and $50,000 stipend.

The Faculty Preparation Program has also awarded $13.5 million in grants to New Jersey colleges and universities for the program, including a $2.5 million grant that will be shared between TCNJ and three other institutions.

"We need solutions now," said Lavizzo-Mourey. "Solutions begin with putting more faculty in place to prepare the next generation of nurses. If we don't solve this problem, there is no question that patient care -- and patients -- will suffer."