"More Young People Enter Nursing - But Shortages Persist"

The good news is that interest in nursing among young people appears to be on the rise. The bad news is that even with more young people entering nursing programs, shortages are likely to persist for many years.

According to a study published in the prestigious journal Health Affairs, nearly 66,200 registered nurses in their early to mid-30s joined the U.S. healthcare work force in 2003, helping to boost RN employment to 2.2 million, up some 6% from 2002. Overall, hospitals and other employers hired an additional 118,700 RNs in 2003, which, combined with some 85,000 hires in 2002, made for the largest two-year growth period in nursing employment since 1983.

This increase shows that efforts to attract more people into nursing clearly are paying off. However, the Health Affairs study noted that these increases are not enough to alleviate the chronic national nurse shortage. Many nursing programs are reporting too few faculty members, making it difficult to increase enrollment. Even with the renewed interest in nursing, the study indicates that the U.S. will still be short hundreds of thousands of nurses by the year 2020."