We’re Running Out of Nurses. Here’s What We Must Do.

By Mary Ellen Smith Glasgow, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent “Great Resignation” have been extremely hard on the nursing profession. A recent McKinsey & Company study projects dire nurse staffing issues in the next few years, as the U.S. could be short 450,000 nurses, or 20% of the nurses needed, by 2025. However, another severe, imminent shortage is not discussed widely, one that could make the problem even worse: a shortage of nursing faculty.

According to the National League for Nursing, 30% of nursing faculty active in 2015 were expected to retire by 2025. Not surprisingly, COVID-19 has accelerated retirements. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 8% of full-time faculty positions were already vacant in U.S nursing schools in 2021, resulting in thousands of nursing students being turned away each year.

The McKinsey report issued a stark warning: Nurses report planning to leave the workforce at higher rates compared to the past decade. If the U.S. does not have an adequate supply of well-prepared nurses, the health of our citizens and communities will suffer.

It generally takes four years to earn a nursing degree, so the U.S. is already behind. We cannot wait until 2025 to address these nursing issues or staffing will decline to dangerous levels. To meet the projected nurse shortfall, the U.S. will need to more than double the number of new graduates entering – and staying – in the nursing workforce every year for the next three consecutive years. The work of doubling the workforce is challenging enough, but in the context of a significant nursing faculty shortage, it becomes unthinkable.

The pandemic has taken an additional toll on nursing faculty. They also bore the burden of COVID-19 – giving COVID tests and vaccines, doubling their workloads due to teaching additional clinical rotations with decreased numbers of students permitted to enter clinical sites, transitioning to online learning and testing, and instructing simulation labs by individual or small group appointment rather than by class, to limit transmission of the virus.

They also worried about their own personal health and that of their loved ones but carried on. They provided individual sessions to graduate students, working nurses who could not attend class due to work demands.

Amid the economic challenges confronting higher education, many nursing faculty have worked without merit raises or market adjustments during the last few years. The majority of nursing faculty earn less than their colleagues in practice and other professional disciplines in the academic sector.

We need to consider the level of education and clinical experience required of nursing faculty and compensate them accordingly and with a clear understanding of their earning potential in the health care setting if we want to attract nurses to academia and retain them. There must be a substantial investment in doctoral nursing education and nursing faculty positions from private and public sectors.

Nursing education accreditation bodies need to re-evaluate what they are asking of nursing faculty in terms of workload and actual impact. We need to simultaneously invest in undergraduate nursing education via scholarships and nationwide public relations campaigns about the benefits of a nursing career (in addition to the usual targeted recruitment efforts), as well as loan repayment and other work-related strategies to retain nurses once they complete their education.

The bottom line is clear: We know there are not enough nurses today, there is not enough faculty to meet the current demand and the situation will probably get worse in the coming years. Without swift action, and a major commitment from all stakeholders to rebuilding the nursing workforce, Americans will pay the price. We need to act now.

Mary Ellen Smith Glasgow’s letter to the editor was originally published Aug. 25, 2022, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Her previous letter, “It is Time to Invest in Nurses,” was published Dec. 2, 2021.