Nurse Training Bottlenecks and Job Burn-Out Rate Worsen Nurse Shortages

The retiring generation of baby boomers need more and not less nursing services. Yet when a cohort of retirees join a local population usually there is a time lag before enough number of nurses can graduate from local programs or can be recruited from the outside. That timing lag also contributes to local shortages of nurses.

At the bottom of the supply chain, the number of qualified instructors and the state laws that regulate the student-instructor ratios is another reason why retiring nurses cannot be replaced rapidly.

Training nurses is one of the most labor-intensive educational processes, as it should be.

In California, for example, the 1:50 instructor-student ratio in regular class rooms can go all the way down to 1:5 within a clinical context. That's a built-in quality-control factor that prevents a quick fix to the problem but some companies try to get around that issue by importing foreign nurses from other countries, with mixed results. Countries like Philippines have reportedly ratcheted up their investments in nursing programs in order to capitalize on this continuing trend of "import nurses."

Even if the programs were there, finding enough qualified instructors (who are mostly nurses themselves) can be a problem. Among the factors contributing to nursing instructor shortages are retirement, low pay, and maternity leave.

In Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example, "the average age of nursing instructors is 57 and enticing nursing grads to teach is tough because working at a hospital means tens of thousands of dollars more a year," according to Dr. Kay Lindgren, the director of UTC's School of Nursing.

In an environment where an instructor is reportedly paid an average of $35,000 a year to train nurses -- the very same students who end up making $40,000 to $70,000 a year after graduation -- it is tough to convince experienced nurses to become instructors.

Another factor that has also contributed to nurse shortages at every link of the supply chain is the frequent frustration and high burn-out rate that comes with the job.

"As many as 60 or 65 percent of nurses will leave the profession within two years of having entered it," said Yvonne VanDyke of Seton Family of Hospitals down in Austin, Texas, as quoted in a recent news report.

The Texas hospital officials are relying on strong residency and on-the-job training programs to steel the future nurses against such "occupational hazards."

During one such 18-week OJT program the nurses "will spend about 25 percent of their time in a classroom and 75 percent with patients, working with experienced nurses," VanDyke added.

All these measures will certainly help to a certain degree. But if all these press reports are an indication, America's nurse shortage will likely get worse before it gets any better.

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U. Akinci is the Editor of the monthly Nurse Recruiter Newsletter published by http://www.nurse-recruiter.com, the nation's premiere travel nurse staffing agency.

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