Up
Front
Hard
lessons
Why
we cannot afford to ignore the nursing shortage
Tim Graham, Editorial
Director
March
12 , 2001
For
three days in January, our editorial staff fled the distractions
of the office and gathered at a hotel near our headquarters
in Sunnyvale, Calif., to chart a course for 2001. The meetings
brought together our four RN editors, who collectively bring
more than a century of nursing wisdom and leadership experience
to our growing network of regional publications.
They include Carol Bradley, MSN, RN, editor of our California
edition; Barbara Brown, Ed.D., RN, FAAN, editor of our Mountain
West edition; JoEllen Koerner, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, editor of
our Midwest edition; and Beth Ulrich, Ed.D., RN, editor
of our South Central edition.
Our
single most important task was to determine our editorial
goals for the rest of the year. As you might have guessed
from our cover story this issue, we have identified coverage
of the worsening national nursing shortage as our top editorial
priority.
For
some of you, news about the shortage may be as tiresome
as the TV commercial where the bunny keeps beating the drum,
and beating it and beating it. Nurses keep getting older.
Fewer young people are enrolling in nursing schools. Nurses
do not get enough respect in a rapidly changing health care
system. They are overworked. And, of course, they are underpaid.
But,
consistent with our mission to serve as a voice for nurses
and the nursing profession, and as an advocate for public
policy decisions that recognize the critical role of nurses
in the delivery of health care, we simply cannot afford
to ignore the bad news.
In considering
our role in addressing the shortage, I'm reminded of what
an early mentor of mine, William R. Burleigh, a terrific
newspaper editor and recently retired CEO of the E.W. Scripps
Co., said of illiteracy and declining student achievement
in the nation's public schools. When these issues emerged
as urgent matters of concern during the late 1970s and early
1980s, some school board members and administrators preferred
to blame the messenger.
Responding
to criticism that we were playing up the problems to boost
circulation, Burleigh responded, "We're not writing
about literacy and schools to sell newspapers today, but
so we can tomorrow."
That's
where we are at NurseWeek today when it comes to the nursing
shortage. We simply cannot afford to ignore it, and we do
so at our own peril.
After
more than 20 years in the newspaper business, I see many
parallels between nursing and teaching. Both of these traditionally
female professions are experiencing staffing shortages,
in large part because women have more options today than
a generation or two ago.
But
it seems to me that public awareness of the need to increase
teacher salaries, for instance, is much greater than the
awareness level about the nursing shortage and its importance.
It's almost universally acknowledged that teachers are underpaid,
but few realize nursing salaries have stopped dead in their
tracks.
According
to the newly released findings of the National Sample Survey
of Registered Nurses, the average annual salary of RNs employed
full time in 2000 was $46,782. When changes in the purchasing
power of the dollar were factored, however, the "real"
salaries of RNs have stayed the same since 1992, after rising
11 percent from 1988 to 1992.
The
point isn't to compare the relative worth of teachers and
nurses, but to suggest nursing may have farther to go in
building support for public policy decisions aimed at reversing
trends that, in the end, threaten the health and safety
of all of us.
You can help by dropping us a line at editor@nurseweek.com
or visit www.nurseweek.com/nursingshortage.
Tell us how the nursing shortage is affecting you, or what
you're doing to address it.
We certainly
do not promise to solve the nursing shortage. But we do
hope that by drawing on the collective wisdom and experiences
of our 1.3 million readers in 28 states, we can help point
the way to some solutions.
