|
Nurses
for a Healthier Tomorrow, a coalition of 43 leading nursing
and health care organizations addressing the nursing shortage,
is launching a national advertising campaign titled "Nursing
education … pass it on."
The goal
of the campaign is to increase the number of nurse educators
- a shortage of which is causing some nursing schools to turn
away prospective students.
"We're
in the middle of a nursing shortage in this country,"
explains Ada Sue Hinshaw, PhD, RN, FAAN, dean and professor,
University
of Michigan School of Nursing. "We cannot afford
to have colleges and universities deny nurse education to
students who want to enter the profession simply because we
don't have enough teachers."
According
to the American Association
of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), a Nurses for a Healthier
Tomorrow member, U.S. nursing schools turned away more than
11,000 qualified applicants in 2003. This is significantly
up from the more than 5,000 students turned away in 2002.
Almost 65 percent of the reporting nursing schools cited faculty
shortages as the reason for not accepting all qualified applicants
into entry-level baccalaureate programs.
Based
on preliminary reports from the National
League of Nursing's (NLN) 2003 Annual Survey of Schools
of Nursing, NLN projects that there will be more than 30,000
qualified applicants not accepted and placed on a waiting
list for all three basic RN education programs (diploma, associate
degree and baccalaureate). NLN is a Nurses for a Healthier
Tomorrow member.
Those
shortages are expected to worsen in the coming years because
more nurse faculty will be retiring, academic compensation
is not keeping pace with pay in the business sector and fewer
nurses are graduating with the advanced degrees needed to
teach.
To combat
this problem, the new faculty recruitment ads convey the personal
satisfaction and rewards nurse educators receive. They do
this through first-person testimonials. They also direct audiences
to the coalition's Web site - www.nursesource.org
- where visitors can learn more about nurse education careers.
"
'Nursing education … pass it on' expresses the essence
of what it means to be a nurse educator - to convey the academic
knowledge one possesses, as well as the practical experience
one has gained in clinical practice," explains Greta
Sherman, senior partner of JWT
Specialized Communications, a Nurses for a Healthier Tomorrow
sponsor and creator of the faculty recruitment advertising
campaign.
The "Nursing
education … pass it on" campaign consists of four
print advertisements, one Web banner and 8-½"
x 11" fliers.
This is
one of many strategies around the country to address the nursing
faculty shortage. In February 2003, Congress appropriated
$20 million in funding for new programs created under the
new Nurse Reinvestment Act. This legislation includes $3 million
for a Nursing Faculty Loan Program that provides loan forgiveness
for students in graduate programs who agree to work as nurse
faculty upon graduation. Funding through this program will
be dispensed by schools of nursing to students pursuing a
faculty career.
In the
fall of 2001, the Nurses for a Healthier Tomorrow coalition
launched a national advertising campaign to address the nursing
shortage. Titled "Nursing. It's Real. It's Life.,"
the goal of the ads was to boost the attractiveness of nursing
as a profession.
According
to a 2002 report issued by the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services' Health Resources
and Services Administration, if current trends in nursing-care
supply and demand continue, the nursing shortage will reach
20 percent within the next 12 years, and 29 percent by 2020.
Major
sponsors of the Nurses for a Healthier Tomorrow faculty recruitment
campaign include Platinum sponsor Lippincott Williams &
Wilkins, Gold sponsor JWT Specialized Communications, Marsh
Affinity Group Services, NurseWeek, Nursing Spectrum
and the Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation.
###
|
