The recession may have affected the nursing shortage — more nurses currently working have decided to continue working rather than retire, or have increased their hours from part time to full time, causing fewer openings for nurses — but it will return quickly once the nation’s economy recovers.
And one of the challenges facing nursing schools and programs as they work to train new nurses in a critical shortage of nursing school faculty and facilities to train nursing students.
The Associated Press in October reported on a gathering of nursing education leaders in Portland, Oregon who met to see if they could “find ways to boost the number of faculty in nursing programs.”
One idea they discussed involved what the article called the “Oregon model,” which “blends the curriculum and faculty of community colleges and universities to give nursing students in two-year associate degree programs a chance to earn bachelor’s degrees.”
This will help with the nursing faculty shortage because the “more nurses with bachelor’s, the greater the number expected to go onto advanced degrees and teaching,” according to the article.
This would be especially helpful in bringing younger nurses into faculty positions since most nursing faculty are nearing age 60 — and retirement.
The nursing shortage could mean 50 percent fewer nurses than are needed in Oregon by 2020 (this is compared to a 29 percent shortage nationwide), the article continued.
Yet another problem facing the need to beef up the number of nursing faculty is the issue of faculty salaries — nurses with advanced degrees and years of experience can make considerably more money as a working nurse (working in what nursing experts call the “practice arena”) rather than as a faculty member in a nursing school or program.
