The Effects of Nursing Shortages in our Society
The shortage of nurses worldwide is a major issue that affects our society, and will continue to become an even bigger issue in the future if nothing is done to find a solution. According to Robert Rosseter (2014), author of Nursing Shortage, the number of available registered nursing jobs in the United States is extreme: “The RN workforce is expected to grow from 2.71 million to 3.24 million in 2022, an increase of 526,800… [and] also projects the need for 525,000 replacement nurses in the workforce bringing the total number of job openings for nurses due to growth and replacements to 1.05 million by 2022” (Nursing Shortage, para. 2). While analyzing these statistics, one can see that the shortage …show more content…
There are numerous factors that contribute to the cause of a shortage in nursing; these factors not only affect the quality of care the patients receive, but it also affects the health of the nurses themselves.
The most prevalent cause of nursing shortages arises from the lack of faculty in nursing schools. According to Rosseter on the Association of Colleges of Nursing report (2014), “U.S. nursing schools turned away 79,659 qualified applicants from the baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2012 due to insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints” (Nursing Shortages, para. 12). This statistic shows that there is an abundance of students looking to pursue a career in nursing, but without enough faculty to educate these students, the …show more content…
According to Liu, Lam, Fong, and Yuan (2012), “Excessive workload of nurses not only reduces quality of patient care, but also adversely affects nurses by threatening their physical safety, lowering job satisfaction, causing burnout, and increasing turnover rate” (Nursing Shortage: The Facts…, para. 19). Many nurses are feeling dissatisfied and burnt out because they are becoming responsible for more patients than they can safely care for. These patients are also much more sick than many patients in the past were because hospital acuity is increasing. This means that only the sickest patients are being admitted into hospitals, and these patients require more care. All of these factors increase the level of stress on the nurse and can affect the health of the nurse in the long run. Nursing is one of the most satisfying jobs a person can pursue, but if they are feeling stressed and overworked, they can not possibly enjoy their job. Ending this shortage would relieve their dissatisfaction and remind them why they chose this path in the first
The shortage of nurses worldwide is a major issue that affects our society, and will continue to become an even bigger issue in the future if nothing is done to find a solution. According to Robert Rosseter (2014), author of Nursing Shortage, the number of available registered nursing jobs in the United States is extreme: “The RN workforce is expected to grow from 2.71 million to 3.24 million in 2022, an increase of 526,800… [and] also projects the need for 525,000 replacement nurses in the workforce bringing the total number of job openings for nurses due to growth and replacements to 1.05 million by 2022” (Nursing Shortage, para. 2). While analyzing these statistics, one can see that the shortage …show more content…
There are numerous factors that contribute to the cause of a shortage in nursing; these factors not only affect the quality of care the patients receive, but it also affects the health of the nurses themselves.
The most prevalent cause of nursing shortages arises from the lack of faculty in nursing schools. According to Rosseter on the Association of Colleges of Nursing report (2014), “U.S. nursing schools turned away 79,659 qualified applicants from the baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2012 due to insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints” (Nursing Shortages, para. 12). This statistic shows that there is an abundance of students looking to pursue a career in nursing, but without enough faculty to educate these students, the …show more content…
According to Liu, Lam, Fong, and Yuan (2012), “Excessive workload of nurses not only reduces quality of patient care, but also adversely affects nurses by threatening their physical safety, lowering job satisfaction, causing burnout, and increasing turnover rate” (Nursing Shortage: The Facts…, para. 19). Many nurses are feeling dissatisfied and burnt out because they are becoming responsible for more patients than they can safely care for. These patients are also much more sick than many patients in the past were because hospital acuity is increasing. This means that only the sickest patients are being admitted into hospitals, and these patients require more care. All of these factors increase the level of stress on the nurse and can affect the health of the nurse in the long run. Nursing is one of the most satisfying jobs a person can pursue, but if they are feeling stressed and overworked, they can not possibly enjoy their job. Ending this shortage would relieve their dissatisfaction and remind them why they chose this path in the first