With COVID-19 and its mutations still a presence and cold and flu season in full swing, nurses across the nation continue to be pushed to their limits.
In January, nurses from two of New York City’s private hospitals went on strike. Staffing levels were a significant issue in the negotiations.
The Ohio State University College of Nursing uses its Summer Institute for Future Nurses as a recruiting tool for high school students.
The federal government projects that more than 203,000 new registered nurse (RN) positions will be created each year from 2021 to 2031, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). But a November 2022 article in U.S. News and World Report, “The State of the Nation’s Nursing Shortage,” reports that, “Fueled by factors like employee burnout, an aging population and a dearth of training, states across the country are facing a familiar and common problem: a nursing shortage.”
Schools of nursing are working to not only educate future nurses, but also bring more diversity to the profession.
“There are structural, social, and systemic determinates that are barriers to more diversity in the nursing workforce,” says Dr. Shannon B. Smith, associate professor and chair of Claflin University’s Department of Nursing. “Those barriers lead to a lack of access to quality education for our minority students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
Response to the pandemic
