"Charlie Morgan" wrote in message
...


That's not really the whole story behind why there is a nursing
shortage. Hospitals used to operate nursing schools to cultivate new
nurses. Most of those schools are now gone due to cost cutting
measures.

. . . and because their students tended to go elsewhere, rendering
hospital-based programs inefficient in solving staffing needs.

Those schools were a very inviting alternative to motivated,
but financially disadvantaged young people who had no way of going to
college. In my opinion, nurses who went to those hospital nursing
schools had a big advantage over nurses who got their credentials from
a college. Nurses from hospital nursing schools worked in the hospital
for the entire duration of their education. What they learned in class
got used immediately. College trained nurses had substantially less
exposure to practical application.

This is all true.


Despite the higher pay, the number of people going into nursing is
dropping rapidly. We have reached the point now, where if the
hospitals all re-opened their nursing schools, there would not be
enough teachers to staff them.

Such programs aren't likely to be reinstituted. Too costly and inefficient,
regardless of the nursing shortage. There are myriad nursing programs
throughout the country, from LPN programs to two and three year AS programs,
and of course the four-year baccalaureate programs. Their enrollments are
all declining, and the candidate pool is declining in quality as well.
Hospitals are stretched too tight financially these days to reinstitute such
programs.

Max