Report calls for improving pay, mentoring, working conditions

The shortfall of registered nurses in the united States will grow to more than 1.1 million by 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. To meet the need for more nurses, nursing schools will need to graduate more than 110,000 additional nurses per year. But while enrollment in baccalaureate nursing programs increased by 13 percent from 2004 to 2005, nursing programs still turned away more than 32,000 qualified applicants in that same period. A shortage of nurse faculty is primarily to blame.

“The problem creates a dangerous Catch-22 that ends up harming patients,” says AFT president Edward J. McElroy. “You can’t solve the nurse shortage problem unless more people receive nursing degrees, but there simply aren’t enough nurse educators.”

To address this problem, the AFT established a Nurse Faculty Shortage Task Force with members from the AFT higher education and healthcare divisions. The task force has issued a report recommending four major initiatives designed to improve recruitment and retention of nursing faculty.

The task force recommends creating a work environment conducive to recruiting and retaining by raising salaries through collective bargaining, mentoring new faculty, lowering faculty-to-student ratios and providing continuing education opportunities.

The second recommendation calls for raising both public and private money to adequately fund existing nursing education programs as well as to expand them. The task force said the federal Nurse Reinvestment Act should be fully funded, and workforce development programs administered by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration and Title VIII should be expanded, encouraging nurses to obtain advanced degrees so they can teach.

The third recommendation calls on the nursing profession to devise new methods of instruction. The report points to the need for research into new models of teaching, new ways to deliver clinical skills, nontraditional and accelerated education programs, analysis of quicker paths to matriculation, and promotion of postgraduate study.

The task force also recommends exploring formal partnerships between schools of nursing and clinical facilities, sharing resources among nursing schools and creating teaching roles for retired faculty.