Nursing Education in the U.S. has gotten backed up against a wall over the last several years and, characteristically, the nursing students get the worst of it.
Nursing students seem to get hit from every direction. Often a 4.0 GPA is required to get into a competitive school, alternately the programs that wait-list students might be a six year wait to get into a two year program. If you don't have the grades or the decade you would need for public education, the private trade schools offer 18 month Associate Degree programs for a mere $40,000 to $68,000.
Though we wish they did, the worries don't stop there. Admitted nursing students often deal with rapid changes in educators, or administrators who push educators into teaching subjects they are not comfortable instructing. Short supply has driven the cost of employing nurse educators extremely high, and programs are making do by overloading existing teachers. As most students know, stress put on teachers by administration generally evolves into stress put on students by teachers framed up in a what-doesn't-kill-you-only-makes-you-stronger sort of way, and pressure to meet their demands is hedged with constant threat of expulsion.
In this difficult, often hostile, altogether too machiavellian society, nursing students often fall by the wayside or get discouraged and choose other less desired careers. Statistics project that in the next 20 years we could be half a million nurses short in the U.S. alone. It's sad to consider this shortage while watching wonderful capable students get turned away for lacking a tenth of a GPA point, or simply not being able to afford six years of waiting or $60,000 in tuition.
This blog is started by these student, goes out to these students, and is dedicated to finding solutions to the obstacles these students face.
Start the Discussion. Start the flow of ideas, and thoughts, and complaints. Somewhere in the vast intelligence and consciousness of our friends and classmates are the solutions we seek.
Why should we seek them? Because we are the future of health care in America, and if we don't find the answers, who else will?
What We're About
Whine, Soap-Box, Pontificate, Postulate, Unravel, Despond and ultimately Come Together with other nursing students.
Start The Discussion seeks problems and accompanying solutions to the many pitfalls and barriers that lie in the path toward and in the navigation of Nursing School.
Start The Discussion seeks problems and accompanying solutions to the many pitfalls and barriers that lie in the path toward and in the navigation of Nursing School.