Marcia: Thanks for sharing your frustration and thank you for being an
educator of future nurses. As you have already heard from others, you are not
alone. I wanted to share with you that I am grateful for all of you who are
faculty members, as we are experiencing a nursing faculty shortage that if not
addressed will stop the education of nurses dead in its tracks.

I want to assure you that it is the hottest issue being discussed in the
nursing and health care community right now from my vantage point. Actually, an
article featured on the cover of Trustee magazine, Nov/Dec. 2006 (AHA, The
Magazine for Health Care Governance) outlines many of the issues you have
raised.
Aiken is quoted as encouraging Trustee Members to "set a requirement that
their hospitals will hire only BSN--level nurses." Since it requires nearly
twice as many nursing faculty to educate nurses at the AD level first, and then
at
the BSN level, that alone might reduce the faculty demand.

At the Academy of Nursing, a committee headed by Maggie McClure(NY) and
Brenda Cleary (NC) is examining the public policy that is needed to enhance the
recruitment and retention of faculty. In NJ, under the leadership of Susan
Reinhard at Rutgers, Center for State Health Policy, we recently conducted a
look
at what is going on in NJ, as requested by the Robert Wood Johnson. We
understand that the businesses in Houston, TX tapped funds and raised money to
increase salaries for nursing faculty. Other states are taking initiatives as
well.

In the meantime, I realize that you have to take care of yourself. However,
I am hoping that help is on the way to encourage our MSN and PhD students to
enter graduate programs much earlier, and if we can restore sources of funding
through traineeships, public and private partnerships, we can begin to address
this critical health care issue. Obviously, graduate student funding could
help. (Other countries have observed our problem, and recently we became aware
of a website for graduate education for nurses abroad.) We also need to
address the lack of competitive salaries, as fortunately while those in practice
positions may be making reasonable salaries, the faculty are not.

Barbara Wright


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