The knee-jerk response to the impact of the project nursing shortage on the nursing profession is that currently employed nurses will likely find themselves working harder and longer hours, resulting in burn out which inevitably results in a high turnover rate, i.e., nurses leaving their jobs for less stressful environments (going from ER departments to private family practices) or leaving the profession entirely. The impact on the public related to this shortage is self-evident: with insufficient nursing staff, patients will not receive the care, attention, and education that nurses provide. That is not to say that these patients won’t receive that care, attention, and education – it may well be of a lower quality out of necessity, since the shortage of nurses will result in the time and resources of currently employed nurses being stretched.
Yet, another impact to the nursing profession as a result of the shortage is the way in which it also results in a shortage of qualified nursing faculty to teach in nursing schools (Nardi & Gyurko, 2013). Nadri & Gyurko (2013) report that “[o]ver 75,000 qualified applicants to nursing programs in the United States alone are turned away each year because of a lack of nurse faculty, clinical sites, and inadequate education budgets” (p. 317). These applicants who are turned away represent a significant solution to the shortage which is being lost because of the dearth of nursing faculty.
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"Nursing Shortage: Impact and Solution".
Nardi & Gyurko (2013) identify eight possible solutions to the nursing faculty shortage – solutions which would reduce that shortage and, in turn, reduce the nursing shortage. The one that seems most interesting is the removal of barriers to advanced practice (AP); this would allow AP nurses to partner and collaborate more fully with their physician” counterparts and would encourage more nurses to pursue higher education degrees in nursing, increasing “the pool for qualified nursing faculty” (Nardi & Gyurko, 2013, p. 322).
- Nardi, D. A., & Gyurko, C. C. (2013). The global nursing faculty shortage: Status and solutions
for change. Journal Of Nursing Scholarship, 45(3), 317-326. doi:10.1111/jnu.12030
