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Not only is nursing the nation's largest healthcare profession, it's quickly becoming
one of the oldest.
The average age of America's 2.5 million registered nurses is 44 and continues to creep
upward. More RNs are retiring than entering the workforce, and the number of new nurses is
not keeping pace with the growing population, experts say.
"There's a desperate need for more young people to come into the profession,"
says Laura Mahlmeister, PhD, RN, a healthcare consultant from San Francisco who works one
day a week as a labor and delivery nurse. "There are openings for nurses everywhere.
It's not only at the bedside, but in nontraditional roles like community health, [managed
care] case management and telephone triage."
The opportunities are expected to continue growing dramatically in the next few
decades. Some healthcare experts predict that a long-term nursing shortage will hit as
baby boomers age and nurses currently in their 40s and 50s retire.
Healthcare leaders are strategizing about ways to prevent such a shortage, but it won't
be an easy task. After a downsizing trend by hospitals in the mid '90s, many prospective
students were scared away from the profession, according to Karen Sechrist, PhD, RN,
project investigator and consultant for the California Strategic Planning Committee for
Nurses.
"Nursing has not been an attractive profession lately. Folks didn't want to go
into nursing for fear of layoffs," she says. "With downsizing and the fact that
there are so many more options for folks to go into these days besides nursing, we haven't
been competing well for students."
The downsizing trend is reversing, but the damage will be hard to undo, experts say.
Before the shake-ups, nurses had always considered their profession to be stable and
secure, says Donna Cardillo, RN, BS, president of Cardillo & Associates Professional
Development Seminars in Wall, New Jersey. "Twenty years ago nurses just showed up at
a hospital and got a job. They didn't need a resume, and there wasn't any
competition," she says. Once hired, they stayed for decades. During and after the
downsizing period, however, nurses were forced to learn new skills, go on multiple
interviews and explore opportunities emerging outside hospitals, from home care to nursing
homes, she says.
"The average nurse doesn't even realize the range of opportunities available to
him or her," Cardillo says. "To attract new people, we need to let them know
nursing is a rich and rewarding career with diverse opportunities."
Mahlmeister, who is over 50, foresees a day when the physical demands of nursing --
lifting, pulling and constantly being on her feet -- will force her to call it quits as a
practicing labor and delivery nurse and turn the reins over to the next generation. By
then, the average annual salary of $42,000 for a typical bedside nurse will have risen,
she predicts.
"Salaries can only be projected to rise because of the desperate need for
nurses," Mahlmeister says.
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