Goal Setting In Nursing
Goal Setting In Nursing
The Nursing Shortage – Why Nursing Is One Of The Hottest Jobs Today
Nursing is one of the hottest jobs today and is expected to be so for the next ten to twenty years. Why is this? Primarily because baby boomers in the United States (or the world, for that matter) are aging and they are living longer because of increasing medical advancements and technologies. There is a shortage of nurses today and the increasing demand will only exacerbate this shortage. Those who are earning their nursing degrees can be assured or of a long-term and high-paying job well into the future.
Factors contributing to the nursing shortage
Aside from the aging population and increase in medical advancements, the factors contributing to the nursing shortage is the fact that enrollment in nursing schools is not growing fast enough to meet the demand. Also, there is a limited nursing faculty. Because there are fewer new nurses every year, the average age of currently working registered nurses is climbing (which is about 45). Ten years from now, a lot of these nurses will be retiring and new nurses are needed to fill their positions. In a study published in the journal Nursing Economics, it was reported that the shortage of nurses is negatively affecting the healthcare goals set by the National Quality Forum and the Institute of Medicine because it undermines the quality of patient care.
How the nursing shortage is being addressed
There is a lot of concern about the nursing shortage and the American Association of College of Nursing (AACN) is trying to address this crisis by working with schools, the media, policy makers, and other organizations. Beginning 2005, the AACN implemented strategies such as statewide initiatives to encourage practicing nurses to go back to school and earn graduate or advanced degrees to teach the next generation of student nurses. Universities and nursing colleges also formed partnerships and sought private support to increase student capacity in nursing schools. The US Department of Labor also did its share by awarding more than $12 million in grants through the President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative. Of the $12 million, $3 million will go to address the shortage of nursing faculty.
Online nursing programs made available
To make it easier for aspiring nurses and to accommodate more nursing students, a lot of universities and schools are offering online programs. Schools such as Kaplan University, South University, and University of Phoenix have developed high-quality distance learning programs. Not only is it cheaper compared to traditional nursing education, but those who have part-time or full-time jobs or family obligations can also take advantage of this opportunity. Learning online offers many benefits, chief of them is the convenience of choosing when to hear lectures and when to do school work and assignments. However, not because it is a virtual classroom doesn’t mean it’s a lot easier or takes less time to finish. Courses, modules and lessons follow the traditional lessons and only differ in delivery and medium. Online learning is also not for everyone. It takes a lot of discipline, independence and organization to successfully finish programs and pass examinations.
About the Author
Brent McNutt enjoys talking about urbane scrubs free shipping and landau scrubs free shipping as well as networking with healthcare professionals online.
i want to know everything about this kind of nurse.?
i am 14 and i am trying to get my goals set for my life. i really love babies and i want to work with babies. first i wanted to be a ob/gyn then a midwife. but now i just want to be the person who cleans the babies off right after birth and weight them and take care of them in the nursery and come to check up on them in their room. but i dont know what kind of nurse that is. and i want to know what kind of education they need, and how long they have to go to school to become this. thank you for all the help!
The first answer was inaccurate on many accounts. Since I can’t see that answer while I post this to pick it apart bit by bit, I will just tell you the correct answer as a whole, and some things may overlap.
To work with newborns in a hospital setting, you don’t need to be a “neonatal nurse”. Although neonatal does refer to newborns, in the profession this term is often reserved for nurses who work in the NICU or Special Care Nursery settings working with premature or ill infants. Nurses who work with healthy, normal newborns in most care settings are not just caring for the babies, they are also providing care to the mother in what is referred to as “couplet care”. There is not a separate nurse who cares for each.
Some hospitals might hire a nurse specifically to sit in the nursery, but honestly since “rooming in” is encouraged with all mothers and babies, it’s rare that hospitals do that these days. Most will just assign one of the maternal-newborn nurses to work a shift in the nursery to oversee things like circumcisions, lab work, put babies under the bili lights, etc.
To do this job, you need to be a Registered Nurse. You can become an RN with as little as an Associate’s Degree in Nursing from a community college. You do NOT need to have a BSN to work with newborns. You do NOT need any special certifications in neonatal nursing or hold a Nurse Practitioner license. All you need is the RN license.
You do have to hold certification in Neonatal Resuscitation Program and regular CPR for adults (since you’ll care for mom too), but this education is provided by your employer when you are hired as part of your orientation process in the vast majority of cases, not something you have to go out and do on your own before you ever get a job in that area.
If you attend an ADN RN program at a community college, there is usually about a year’s worth of pre-requisite courses in biology, chemistry, anatomy & physiology, and perhaps a few others, which must be completed before you can even apply to the nursing program. Once you start the nursing courses, it is two years, as the courses are almost always sequenced so that you cannot complete it in less time.
You can get your BSN, and I definitely encourage it, but as I said before, it’s not necessary. Holding your RN license is the most important thing to get a job. Many employers will pay for you to complete your BSN degree later if you are interested in doing that. Some hospitals might say in their job ads that they “prefer” BSN, but that shouldn’t discourage people from trying.
You should also know that in nursing school you will be trained in ALL areas of nursing, caring for all populations from newborn to geriatric, learning about all kinds of disease processes and things. You might not like nursing school very well if you are very one-track-minded about the newborn thing. You still need to learn all of it. And you might find your interests lie elsewhere in the process. Which is ok. That’s the great thing about nursing. . . you are trained and capable of doing so many things, that if you find yourself not liking a certain area or a certain job, there is always something else that could be quite different that you can try.
Good luck.
