Shortage of Faculty Exacerbates the General Nursing Shortfall

I would be willing to say that discussions of the nursing shortage have been overdone if there were evidence of progress in solving the problem or if I weren’t so concerned that there won’t be a nurse to care for me when I need one. Problems always seem more monumental when one is affected personally and that’s where I find myself. My health is good—for now. I have the dubious distinction, however, of being a member of the oldest Baby Boomer class, so who knows how much longer I’ll enjoy my healthy status before things begin to fall apart.

The truth is, the problem of not enough nurses is growing, not shrinking, so how can we not talk about it at every turn. Ignoring the reality of the shortage merely exacerbates an already critical situation. I am a nurse who does not work in a clinical setting. Rather, I write about nurses and nursing. I am not alleviating the shortage by clocking in at a hospital every workday but I certainly can do my part to keep the subject at the forefront, if only in my small realm, by writing about it—often.

When the shortage is addressed, the focus tends to be on clinical nurses. Not much attention has been directed upon another vital group of nurses—nursing faculty. Thousands of qualified nursing school applicants are turned away every year due a lack of faculty and clinical facilities.

A number of factors are at play in the problem of inadequate numbers of faculty. University programs stress Ph.D. credentials for their faculty. While certainly desirable, attaining a Ph.D. is a time consuming and expensive endeavor that ultimately leads to an academic position that pays significantly less than that of a clinical nurse. The state of Maryland reports that the disparity in compensation there is about $30,000. The average salary for a clinical nurse with an advanced degree is $80,000, while a nursing faculty member earns about $50,000. Most of us don’t work only because we have a love for our profession. That love goes hand in hand with a paycheck and $30,000 is a dramatic gap. Frankly, given those numbers, I’m surprised anyone is teaching.

In a phone interview many months ago with Diana Mason, Ph.D., RN, editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Nursing, she stated that universities need to make concessions for increasing the salaries of nursing faculty as has been done for medical school faculty.

There are many more facets to the nurse faculty shortage—it isn’t all about the money. But, money talks and increasing funding for faculty says, “We recognize the need for adequate numbers of faculty, we value quality faculty, we honor the importance of your work and you should be compensated accordingly.” In light of the astronomically massive bailouts recently handed to the banking and auto industries, is it too much to ask that a tiny fraction of that amount of money (which would still be a lot of money) be directed to faculty at our colleges of nursing? I think not.

This frustrates me. What are your views on the subject?