Shortage of Faculty Members Leading to Shortage of Registered Nurses

When it comes to registered nurses (RNs), they receive training to provide care to patients, to assess their medical condition, and also to administer medications/treatment. Employment wise, they can be found in hospitals, in hospices, in doctors’ offices, in long term care centers, as well as providing home healthcare. Since there is a growing demand for proficient registered nurses, their importance in the healthcare field cannot be discarded. And since an increased demand is set to surface in the coming future, prospects for RNs certainly look bright.

Know that the healthcare sector is amongst the quickest growing fields in the US, and within it, registered nursing is growing the fastest. However, the fact remains that an increasing number of nursing aspirants are turned back by various nursing institutions. Data shows that more that 15,000 eligible aspirants were denied admission in the previous year alone. The reason behind this is simple; inadequate faculty. This, in turn, is leading to the shortage of registered nurses. With 8.5% of the nursing jobs still lying vacant, this shortage in faculty isn’t making things for nursing aspirants any easier.

This shortage is faculty, though, is not the sole reason for students being turned back. Also playing a role are constraints in budgets which prohibit nursing institutions from updating their equipment and infrastructure. In many cases, students face a shortage when it comes to clinical practice alternatives. And even though the federal and state run bodies are taking measures to address this shortage of the registered nurse, little is being seen in terms of improvement owing to nursing institutions’ inability to keep up with the rise in demand.

Inadequate Faculty a Major Concern:

The biggest factor that is having an effect on the intake numbers of nursing students is that there simply aren’t enough proficient nurses who are teaching higher levels. And although not all nursing subjects require nurses as teachers, most of them certainly do. As a matter of fact, there are some subjects that only accept nurses with doctorates as faculty members. And the number of registered nurses who opt for doctorates is rather miniscule. What’s being seen is that many positions that remain unfilled are those which require applicants to have completed their doctorates.

There’s a particular reason behind this shortage. Although being a doctorate in any realm is a definite achievement, nurses have the option to seek careers as midwifes, nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, etc. and make a fair amount of money. Even registered nurses who completed their master’s have a fair amount of options when it comes to looking for faculty jobs. In a number of communities, nursing specialists are responsible for providing medical care in the absence of doctors/physicians.

Moreover, since these degrees are specialized in nature, nurses who wish to pursue their doctorates often have to relocate to urban environments. Once they’re done, they tend to stay back. Besides, close to 25% of nurses who complete their doctorates prefer working in clinical settings as opposed to entering academics.

While a teaching position in this field was rather lucrative in the past, since the surge in demand for RNs has risen, their salaries have quickly overshadowed the previously well paying faculty jobs. Now that a number of faculty members face retirement, not too many aspirants hope to fill these spots. Also, many registered nurses who spend most of their careers as faculty members choose to move to clinical settings later in life to better their earnings.

Possible Solutions:

The shortage in the nursing faculty realm is not something that is debatable; it’s there for all to see. Since the demand for proficient nurses continues to grow quickly, there is an urgent requirement to ensure that an adequate number of nurses receive suitable training. The government, on its part, is taking some measures to address this problem, and federal funding is already being used in order to develop better programs and collect appropriate data in terms of vacancies that are lying empty.

Since many members of the nursing faculty face retirement, this problem is not going away quickly. The irony is that the rise in demand for registered nurses in clinical settings has raised their salaries considerably, and this is getting more nurses to leave the academic realm. With the shortage in faculty, there is a lesser intake of students. This leads to the shortage of registered nurses. Estimates say that there will be a rise of 6% when it comes to shortage of registered nurse in clinical settings by next year. This, again, is primarily because of the faculty members’ shortage.