Nurse shortage grows acute; classes lacking
L.A. Daily News 3/19/07
But those four years were spent instead at Los Angeles Valley College, waiting to get courses in microbiology, anatomy, physiology and other requirements to enter the four-year nursing program at California State University, Northridge.
"I was already a certified nurse's assistant when I was in high school," said Alvarez, now 24. "I had taken college courses in English and math. I just always wanted to be a nurse and I was lucky that my parents supported me."
Actually, she was lucky to get into a nursing program at all.
The California Board of Registered Nursing says the demand for nursing classes far outstrips what's available. While 117 programs are now available statewide - 20 more than at the start of the decade - there was room for just 39percent of all qualified applicants in 2005-06, the last year for which data were available.
Equally problematic, officials say, is a shortage of instructors to teach those responding to the nationwide demand for nurses.
"Nurses who are qualified to teach say they can make better money elsewhere," said Mary Cox, who chairs the Health Sciences Department and directs the nursing program at Valley College, where she has worked to eliminate the waiting list among prospective nurses. "People don't realize that the nursing shortage also has to do with finding instructors," she said.
California's nursing crisis began about 15 years ago, when hospitals streamlined their operations to cope with rising health-care costs and shorter patient stays.
Thousands of RNs lost their jobs as hospitals downsized, and others subsequently left the profession because of lagging salaries, long hours and crushing case loads.
Now, as baby boomers age and more nursing resources are again needed, the health-care industry finds itself with an insufficient number of RNs.
A report released last August by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that most regions of the Golden State are facing a critical shortage of RNs. California, in fact, has the nation's lowest ratio of nurses for each 100,000 residents.
The need is greatest in Los Angeles, which is currently short some 10,000 RNs and is forecast to need more than 20,000 additional nurses by 2030, the university study says.
But filling those jobs is proving difficult, experts say.
Many colleges discontinued their nursing programs a decade ago because of the glut of RNs and are now scrambling to revive the classes. Further, the average nurse is now 45 years old, so the profession will have to replace those who retire.
Cox said many of those who apply to the Valley College nursing program have a romanticized view of the profession and are ill prepared to handle the actual work of being an RN.
"They walk into a hospital setting and they say,`You want me to do what?"' Cox said. "I think there's a perception out there that they are going to enter nursing and make money."
One study by the Los Angeles Community College District found that nearly 25 percent of nursing-program students dropped out, slightly higher than the statewide average.
Even after they graduate, one-third of all registered nurses quit during their first year in a hospital, according to the California Nurses Association, which represents 75,000 nurses.
"Either they fall through the cracks or end up in a unit that doesn't suit them and they are traumatized," spokeswoman Liz Jacobson said.
Seeking to stem the tide, the CNA created a mentoring program three years ago that pairs novices with senior nurses.
"Initial data found that the nurses that went through the program are seven times more likely to stay," Jacobson said.
Fewer nurses Innovative solutions
In the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles community colleges Mission, Pierce and Valley are partnering with nearby high schools and hospitals to try to boost the number of prospective nursing students.
In addition, Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima - which has been on the cutting edge of educational innovation - just received a $500,000 grant from the Unihealth Foundation so aspiring nurses can start their course work as early as ninth grade.
The center is working with Mission College in Sylmar and with Mission Hospital in Panorama City to help recruit students.
"This community is largely uninsured, and it needs professionals in health care," Principal Yvonne Chan said. "We want to start the children young, so they can finish their prerequisites, go to college, then come back and give to their community.
"This is a community where there is high poverty. We needed to create our own pipeline to be self-reliant."
Over the next three years, the grant will help 350 students pay for books, supplies and bus passes to and from the hospital and Mission College. Chan said 95 students have already enrolled in the program.
In addition, California State University, Northridge, is in the final stages of creating a 15-month accelerated nursing program that would begin this summer.
The 56-unit program is geared toward those who hold a bachelor's degree in a comparable field and would like to become a registered nurse.
The campus has already received more than 400 inquiries about the fast-paced program.
"We all realize that we need more nurses in the Valley, and CSUN is positioned well to do that," said Martha Highfield, director of CSUN's nursing program.
"This type of program is one of the fastest, if not the fastest, way."
And Highfield believes retention rates will be good.
"Typically in programs like the one we're starting, retention is high because you have students who already hold degrees, which makes them a proven learner," she said.
But Highfield cautioned that the course work is heavy, leaving no time for outside jobs.
"We'll be advising our students that they can't work," she said, and encouraging them to seek financial aid.
She also said students will be reminded of the career they are entering.
"I think people don't realize how physically and intellectually challenging it is to be a nurse," Highfield said.
"They think it's hand-holding and passing out medications. I think sometimes people are unhappy in nursing because they are recruited into believing they will just be doing bedside. But what they don't realize is they will be dealing with very challenging situations, with very sick people, and it's not easy work.
"But nurses now have many more opportunities," she said. "If a nurse knows herself well, she becomes highly respected."