Wanted: Nurses -- In the E.R. and especially as professors
By Claire Palermo 08/27/2009
The Professional Medical Careers Institute of Thousand Oaks awarded pins and certificates on Aug. 22 to 30 Ventura County nursing students who successfully completed 185 hours of Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) training. After they take state certification exams, these students will have their pick of multiple job opportunities and comfortable salaries, especially if they continue their training to become Registered Nurses (RNs).
In the eyes of many young college graduates, their situation is enviable: they are desperately needed and are in a noble profession that revolves around caring for others. Baby-boomer nurses are preparing to retire, creating what has been called “the graying of nursing,” leaving hospitals severely understaffed and opening up hundreds of jobs.
Rhonda Johnston, an emergency room nurse at Simi Valley Adventist Hospital, has experienced the effects of this nursing crisis at her job. “In the ER, there’s usually about a ratio of four patients to one nurse,” she said. “But sometimes, three of those patients will be in critical condition and need one-on-one attention. There aren’t enough of us to go around, and patients end up waiting for a long time.”
Hospitals supplement their regular staff by hiring people from registries. Nurses sign up with a registry to work on an as-needed basis at any hospital within a certain range, usually determined by county. Nurses receive a phone call, and they have one hour’s notice to prepare for work. “We often get the same people from registry at my hospital, which is nice,” Johnston said. “We don’t have to retrain or acclimate new people to our patients every time — but that isn’t uncommon.”
However, despite the ideal job market, students have a long road ahead. They must first secure a place in a college nursing program, where competition is stiff. Community colleges are faced with overwhelming numbers of qualified applicants, and they are turning away more students than they enroll. Ventura College has a two-year waiting list for its nursing program, because few experienced nurses are becoming teachers.
“The average age for nurses these days is in the 50s. By that age, people have families and want to work part-time. There are a lot of registered nurses who aren’t working. I was fortunate, and got accepted into nursing school right away,” Johnston said. “But several people that I knew had to wait two years. And by then, even if they were young, some of them had either had kids or decided that they wanted to pursue something else.”
The root of the nursing crisis is predictable: money. The national average annual salary for nurse practitioners is around $81,000, substantially higher than that of nursing faculty, who average between $55,000 and $68,000 annually. Ironically, the solution appears to be as obvious as the problem’s source: we need more educators, so we need to make teaching more appealing. But with the recent state budget that made massive cuts to funding for California education, the resources just aren’t there.
“To teach nursing, you have to have degrees both in nursing and in teaching, as well as experience in a hospital. It’s a route that requires difficult long-term commitment,” Johnston said. “But there’s a need on every floor of the hospitals. It used to be that you started in a basic unit, and had to pay your dues to work your way up. But these days, you can be hired by an ER unit fresh out of school.”
Some nursing programs are exploring distance education, and sharing resources between several schools. “One of the only ways to fix the issue is probably by reducing class sizes,” Johnston said. “In nursing school, I was in a collaborative program run by Glendale College and Ventura College. We watched lectures broadcast by satellite from Ventura, and clinical rotations at the hospital during the first year. Then, in the second year, we were part of the regular Glendale program.
They had to work hard to make sure we felt at home, and they succeeded.”
However, gaining experience through hands-on time in the hospital is invaluable, and professors will always be needed to guide students through their training. “You definitely have to be self-motivated,” Johnston said. “Having the right temperament is a big part of nursing. We see things that some people wouldn’t be able to deal with. But you also have to find mentors, and trust your team to work through things together.”
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