Given MSM is constantly going-on about “the nursing shortage” - given that most of our media is just spin, narrative, and propaganda, one has to ask:
Is there really a shortage of nurses in America?
Or is there relatively more demand than before?
Are fewer people choosing nursing as a career?
Are there regulatory reasons that are either limiting supply, or using up available nurses in jobs others could do?
I do not know the answers. I just know that corrupt media doesn’t tell the truth and certainly doesn’t do proper analysis to any issue.
Good questions.
Anecdotal evidence, is that there is more demand than before, as baby boomers age, as older people are the biggest population found in hospitals and nursing homes. Increasing population of older folks will translate into greater demand for medical personnel, including nurses.
I’ve heard that the women’s movement has steered some women away from nursing, because in this modern age, where women can be astronauts or anything else, fewer will choose nursing.
Yes I know men are nurses too, but less than 10% of registered nurses are men, so the biggest source of nurse recruitment would still be among women.
As with medicine, there is (and always has been) a conflict between academics and practitioners, which plays out as fights over the balance between theoretical training and practical training.
In medical schools (which I know well), the academics have been gaining ground for forty years and the practitioners have almost completely been driven from the battlefield. I have been told that the nursing schools that confer the BSN degree have had much the same story, but I don’t have intimate knowledge of the inside workings of those schools the way I do medical schools.
There are plenty of registered nurses in the U.S. I am one of them. I refuse to do the job.
I was treated like an assembly line worker but the worst part was being pulled from my regular unit to another unit outside of my experience. Not only is it stressful to be in an unfamiliar unit but I would arrive 20 to 30 minutes late. People’s lives are put in danger every time this happens. Very, very stressful!
I started looking for a different type of work a few years after graduating from nursing school. I now have a doctorate in another health profession. This profession allowed total control over my clinical practice. I am now retired after a long successful career.