Lack of Faculty Adds to the Nursing Shortage
The U.S. House Subcommittee on Select Education heard testimony on the growing shortage of nurses and how a lack of graduate-level nursing educators may be contributing to the problem. The field hearing, held at the Nevada State College and chaired by Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV), is the second field hearing this week examining the connection between nursing shortages and the availability of higher education faculty in the nursing field.
"According to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, by 2020 experts believe there will be a national shortage of more than 800,000 registered nurses," said Porter. "The National League of Nursing estimates that more than 125,000 qualified applicants were rejected by nursing programs in the 2003-2004 academic year. The shortage of nursing faculty is one of several factors that are most commonly cited as reasons behind this trend." Witnesses discussed the connection between the lack of higher education nursing faculty and the lack of trained professionals in the nursing field, noting that the number of qualified nursing instructors has not kept pace with nurse education programs that are expanding to address the shortage. These factors have created a bottleneck in the supply of nurses. "Without sufficient nurse faculty, schools of nursing cannot expand their capacities to educate new generations of nurses to meet the demand. Only through addressing the nurse faculty shortage will the overall nursing shortage be resolved," said Connie Carpenter, director of nursing at Nevada State College.
"The faculty shortage is the primary barrier to increasing enrollments. As a result, at least 32,797 qualified applicants were turned away from schools of nursing in 2004, up sharply from 18,105 in 2003. Some of these qualified students are being placed on waiting lists that may be as long as two years." "Although national in scope, the shortage is particularly acute in Nevada. In 2000, Nevada had 514.4 [registered nurses] per 100,000 people, significantly less than the national rate of 780.2," explained Sandra Rush, the chief nursing officer for St. Rose Dominican Hospitals in Henderson, Nevada. Rush described factors that have led to the current nursing shortage, including population growth, aging baby boomers coupled with an aging nursing labor pool, and too few nursing graduates, driven in large part by a lack of higher education nursing educators.
"The nurse faculty shortage intensifies the current nursing shortage by curtailing the capacity of schools of nursing to educate students. Nursing education is faculty intensive, just like the other health professions. There are insufficient numbers of master's and doctorally-prepared nurses available to educate badly-needed current and future nursing students," said Carolyn Yucha, professor and Dean of Nursing at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. "[Just 9.6 percent of the [registered nursing] workforce holds master's degrees, while only 0.6 percent holds doctorates, the groups from which most faculty are drawn." In July, the Education & the Workforce Committee approved a bill, the "College Access; Opportunity Act" (H.R. 609), that would help address nursing shortages by including nurses in the category of professions considered areas of national need, making nurses eligible for up to $5,000 in student loan forgiveness. This complements state and local initiatives like those highlighted during the field hearing aimed at increasing the number of students entering the nursing field and the number of higher education faculty available to train prospective nurses. Increasing the number of qualified nursing educators is an important strategy to address the overall nursing shortage facing the nation, Porter noted, because a lack of higher education nursing faculty is preventing qualified applicants from entering the nursing profession.