The Bureau of Job Statistics and workforce analytics all identify multiple reasons for the current lack of qualified registered nurses in the workforce. This shortage is predicted to last nearly until 2030, which spans another 13 years. The demand for registered nurses is growing dramatically. As the general population ages, the baby boomers reach their senior years the need for more registered nurses who have critical skills grows apace.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Registered Nursing (RN) is one of the top occupations so far as job growth through 2022. The RN workforce is predicted to grow from 2.71 million in 2012 to 3.24 million in 2022, an increase of 526,800 or 19%. Unfortunately the workforce will not keep pace with the nursing need as companies transition from volume based to value based care.

Nursing shortages are being brought about by multiple factors, not the least of which are:

• An aging RN workforce
• Low numbers of Masters and Doctoral level nurses
• Increased demand for care
• Disparate wages
• Inability to find nursing programs

Though the analysts provide many reasons for the shortage of registered nurses, there is a growing school of people who believe strongly that the main reason for the crisis has nothing to do with the fact that not enough people wish to become nurses. Most people today believe that the main reason for the nursing crisis is the rapidly depleting pool of nurse educators. The question may not be so much why we have a nursing shortage, but why we have a nursing faculty shortage. The answers to that question are many and varied.

The pressing need today is for us to find nursing students who wish to become qualified nurses, but rather, to find those who are able and capable and willing to educate them. For three years in a row, according to nursing schools, more than 40 thousand qualified nursing students who applied to graduate degree and baccalaureate degree programs were turned away from the schools of nursing. This was primarily due to their lack of faculty to teach them. (American Association of Colleges of Nursing).

In many cases, the reasons cited for the lack of nurse faculty or nurses who transition into nurse faculty include these: (AACN Data)

• Faculty retirement patterns
• An aging faculty
• Massive competition for graduate degree nurses
• Significant salary disparity between clinical and academic nurses
• Graduation rates of advanced nursing degree programs.

The AACN has undertaken work to draw more attention to the shortage of nursing faculty and to facilitate solutions to that in order to boost the nursing enrollment and to provide for better nursing faculty. According to their numbers several years ago, nearly every professional nursing program needs more educators and there is a national vacancy rate of about 7-8 percent in professional nursing programs.

Their work has had some dividends in that they’ve drawn attention to the need for nursing educators. They’ve also helped to provide answers and information for those clinical nurses who are considering moving into academia in order to help to prepare the next generation of nurses.

It remains for us to take up that task as well and continue to move forward, helping to find nursing faculty and to assist clinical nurses who desire to transition into nurse educator positions.

Our second article in the series will explore the options for a clinical nurse to transition to nurse educator and examine the job outlook for those who seek to transition to an educator role.

Article provided by, Advocate Search Group – a recruiting firm focused exclusively on filling academic nursing program positions throughout the USA

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