It's been hammered own everyone's throats that there is a nursing shortage. Everyone seems to have someone to blame about the problem, but what is really the core issue that is keeping this shortage from being resolved. Is the lack of people wanting to get into nursing? That might not be the case. It turns out the bottleneck might be the lack of nursing teachers.
There are actually two specific areas in education that are causing the Nursing shortage to increase even further. One is a lack of clinical placements where a student will get real experience under their belt. The other is the plain fact of not enough nursing professors.
Even though enrollment is nursing programs nationwide is up, colleges are turning down qualified students everyday. To make it even worse, most of the faculty at nursing programs are at retirement age.
What are some possible solutions? One is to attend an accredited nursing program online. That's right, online. Schools like the University of Phoenix which feature both in class and online nursing programs are finding that the online program is a great program for them.
This is because you simply don't need as many nursing instructors to run the online program. Also, taking an online class allows people to keep their day job because they now can get their nursing degree on their own time. It also helps that online programs are far cheaper than conventional programs.
Another solution is to increase the pay for teaching at nursing programs. This will attract more experienced nurses. One final solution is to create more partnerships with hospitals to provide educational services on a part time basis with nurses at the hospital.
There are countless ideas out there, but most importantly, action needs to be taken because the lack of nursing care is a major problem which can even lead to unwarranted deaths.
