Filling the void
While the nation is experiencing a nursing shortage, with an estimated 114,000 unfilled positions nationwide by 2015, Utah State University’s nursing program is not suffering from a lack of interested students, but from a lack of funding for more instructors and local jobs.
Joanne Duke, campus manager of the USU/Weber State University Cooperative Nursing Program, said every year they receive more than 100 applicants wanting to be accepted into the program. Only 24 can be accepted because of the lack of instructors.
Right now there are seven faculty members on staff to teach and support the 60 students in the program. More students could be taught if more instructors could be hired, Duke said.
“I’ve had a devil of a time hiring a good faculty. Most of the instructors on staff could make three times more in a clinical setting than they do teaching college courses,” Duke said. “But right now we have a very good faculty. They all have a desire to teach.”
Applicants are accepted into the nursing program on a point basis which entails ACT test scores, GPA and work-skill evaluations, Duke said. And men are given an extra point for being a minority and applicants who tried to apply the previous year, but weren’t accepted, are given an extra point.
Being accepted doesn’t always mean success, either.
“The program is extremely rigorous,” Duke said. “Students almost always fail their first test, and about one-fourth of our students fail out of the program entirely.”
The emphasis of the program is to teach the students how to, “think critically about problems and apply solutions,” Duke said.
After graduating from USU’s nursing program, nurses are being heavily recruited to work at hospitals in larger cities.
“The biggest shortage problem starts in hospitals in Ogden and moves south. It’s terrible down there,” Duke said.
Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City is currently hiring for 31 nursing positions, and LDS Hospital has 48 nursing positions open. In Provo, Utah Valley Regional Medical Center also has 31 positions open. Locally, Logan Regional Hospital has only one opening and that’s for a nursing assistant.
“Over half of our students are married and have a desire to raise their families here. Their complaint is that there isn’t enough jobs,” Duke said.
Matt Monroe, president of the 2002 nursing program at USU and a nursing student, is planning on working out of state, possibly in his home state of Idaho.
“If you go to a really rural or really urban area you’re more likely to find the shortage,” Monroe said.
While Monroe was lucky enough to find a job locally, one of his friends, a student in the nursing department was not and has to drive down to Salt Lake where there is more of a need for licensed practical nurses (LPN).
“A lot of people aren’t that lucky to get jobs locally,” Monroe said.
While there isn’t a nursing shortage locally, nationwide there is. Eighty-two percent of hospitals in New York City reported a shortage according to a report by the American Medical Association (AMA) called “The Growing Nursing Shortage in the United States.”
Part of the problem could be attributed to an age gap in the nursing profession.
“In 1980, 40 percent of RNs were age 35 and younger, but today that figure is 18 percent,” according to a survey from the AMA.
While the nursing workforce is aging there has been a 5 to 7 percent decline in each of the past four years for entry-level nurses, according to the same AMA article.
“We have this gap between older nurses and the ones just entering the profession,” Duke said. “Most of us will be retiring soon. Where are all the ones in between?”
The Health Resources and Services Administration stated 494,000 RNs didn’t use their licenses in 2000.
Duke said most of them probably decided to get married and stay at home with their families, “they are in temporary retirement.”
“It’s an excellent time to get into the field,” Monroe said. “It’s an issue of supply and demand.”