Nurse Dramas---Helping or Hurting?

I’m surprised by my interest in and excitement about the new nurse-centered TV dramas, Nurse Jackie and HawthoRNe (and Mercy projected to debut in the fall lineup). I suppose that some of my reaction is in response to the efforts of Sandy Summers who, as the former voice of The Center for Nursing Advocacy and presently that of The Truth About Nursing, has kept a close eye on TV medical dramas and diligently campaigned for the accurate portrayal of nurses and nursing.

Summers communicates frequently with writers and producers, calling them to task for relegating nurses to insignificant roles while showing physicians performing the lifesaving skills that nurses do every day. She was told, time and again, that the viewing public is simply not interested in stories about nurses, only physicians.

From reading the accounts of her interactions with TV brass, it certainly appeared that Hollywood had its heels dug in and no changes were forthcoming. I am very curious to know if it was Summers’s persistent urging, or something else, that motivated producers to give nurses a chance to star on the small screen in not one, but three, shows—a remarkable about face.

Writers have given Jackie and Hawthorne powerful roles but also personal foibles, namely Jackie’s prescription drug addiction and Hawthorne’s rebellious daughter, in addition to questionable behavior on the parts of both nurses.

It’s early in the game but the shows are stirring up controversy within the nursing profession. The Center for Nursing Advocacy wants to explore this controversy and is asking nurses to respond to the Center’s discussion board to voice their opinions.

Go to the Center’s Web site, click on ‘discussion board’ and tell the Center what you think regarding these two questions:

1. Do you think Nurse Jackie and HawthoRNe are helping or hurting nursing?
2. How can nurses, including nursing faculty, use Nurse Jackie and HawthoRNe to educate their peers and students about the importance of becoming advocates for the nursing profession?

I’d also like to hear your opinions. Please share them here.

From Military Medic to Mainstream Nurse: A Few Changes Could Ease Nurse Shortage

A large aging population coupled with too few nurses being educated equals a massive shortage of nurses. There’s nothing new about that equation. Possible solutions for a fix are regularly bandied about but I recently read of one that is new to me and one that makes perfect sense.

Edward J. Halloran, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, associate professor in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill put the idea on the table in a recent viewpoint article in the American Journal of Nursing (June 2009).

Halloran pointed out that just the U.S. Army alone, among our branches of military, has 13,000 medics currently serving and prepares another 8,000 annually to serve as active duty replacements and also for service in the Army Reserve and National Guard.

Halloran has reviewed the army manual for medics and believes that what they learn is equal to or even greater than that of associate-degreed nurses and RNs who are products of accelerated programs for college graduates with undergraduate degrees in other fields.

While military medics are well trained and could move into nursing careers following their military service, all but one state have requirements for licensure that are road blocks to this transition. Only West Virginia allows discharged medics to sit for some health care practitioner exams, including the NCLEX-RN, without completing further training.

Nursing isn’t the only profession to take a hard line and resist allowing into its fold practitioners who can successfully test, yet haven’t completed certain aspects of traditional professional education, but is that a wise stance?

Given the critical state of our diminished supply of nurses, doesn’t it make sense, as Halloran suggests, that state legislators reassess current regulations to expedite the process for medics to gain RN certification during or after military service?

Halloran points out that beginning in 2011 all branches of the military will, for the first time, train medics together in one facility at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. It is his thought that adjustments be made to increase nursing and medical science aspects of that training program, and gear it to give medics the skills they will need for later certification as RNs.

It certainly does seem that we are closing the door on what could be thousands of potential RNs by refusing to make changes in the certification process. With nursing schools unable to graduate anywhere near the number of nurses we need, Halloran’s idea of morphing military medic training into an as yet untapped source for producing nurses seems truly inspired.

What do you think? Should concessions be made for medics to sit for RN exams?

Will Health Care Reform Exacerbate the Nursing Shortage?

The subject of health care reform is talked about in every sort of media outlet. Newspapers and TV news programs are rife with reports of what is or isn’t happening in the crusade to provide better health care in our country. It is my opinion that everyone should have access to health care but I certainly don’t have the answers as to how it should be accomplished. It is a massive and complicated problem that should’ve been dealt with before it grew to these proportions.

But, let’s just say that, by some miracle, a practical solution is found and enacted. Great news? Problem solved? Maybe new problems?

I frequently write in this blog about the nursing shortage. There are so many aspects to it that it is a fertile subject for ideas to discuss. But, here is an obvious aspect that I hadn’t thought of until I read about it in a nursing newsletter.

Health care reform is intended to help the uninsured and underinsured receive the care they need. If, indeed, that happens, vast numbers of those who have delayed seeking care will likely do so. The nursing shortage is expected to reach a critical stage in just a few years due to, among other things, the large numbers of aging baby boomers who will need medical care. Add to that large numbers of people newly covered in some way that opens the door to healthcare access and the nursing shortage balloons into an even bigger problem.

I am for health care reform. I want everyone to have access to care. I want there to be enough nurses to care for those who need them. We need more nurses! Perhaps the first order of business by this administration and congress should be to solve the problem of how to educate greater numbers of nurses before they do anything to create an even larger shortage.

What do you think? Please let me know your opinion.

What Happens when the Economy Turns Around

The ramifications of the projected nursing shortage have been looming over us for quite awhile. Now, the recession has created an unexpected hitch that, while a boon for the present, could exacerbate a certain facet of the problem in the future. The new problematic aspect concerns the retirement of older nurses.

That retirement is expected to significantly deplete the nursing workforce in the next several years is not a new revelation. The nursing workforce as a whole is older in age than most professions, with an average age of 47, so the numbers make it obvious that nurses will be retiring in greater numbers than replacements can be educated. The exodus was expected to be somewhat gradual, however, with a certain number retiring this year, a certain number the next and so on. But, the downturn in the economy has put a different spin on the whole thing.

Large numbers of nurses who were planning to retire this year or the next, and beyond, have seen 401Ks and other retirement accounts shrink so drastically that they simply cannot afford to retire at this time. The retention of these older nurses has the obvious benefit of continued adequate staffing, putting the problem of the nursing shortage on the back burner for many health care facilities, at least for the time being. But, what happens when the economy turns around? The fear is that the sudden departure, en masse, of older nurses, their numbers having grown each year of the recession, will create a large and critical deficit in the workforce all at once.

It all comes down to the issue of the inability to produce the numbers of nurses needed to meet the demand. Just that one thing, schools having to turn down thousands of qualified applicants each year due to a lack of faculty and clinical opportunities, is so far reaching it defies imagination—at least for me.

What about the retirement issue? Are any of you delaying retirement? What adjustments have you made to your retirement plans? I would like to hear your story.