Chancellor Institute

As educational professionals, we believe our school has better, more well-rounded practices when compared to many traditional models. We pride ourselves on being progressive, which is why we focus on building strong relationships at state and federal levels, as well as on-campus with our students and staff.

People Are Living Longer

Medicine continues to find ways to cure the previously incurable, treat the previously untreatable, and significantly lengthen the average American lifespan. While this is obviously a great thing in many ways, it also means that the population is aging, and hospitals are becoming more filled with people in need of treatment.

This patient growth has put considerable strain on nurses across the country and has created a tremendous need for more of them.

Nurses Are Retiring

The aging population is a significant part of our workforce, and many people are drawing closer to retirement age. This demographic shift means the loss of nurses in the workforce and the loss of all of the decades of experience that these nurses bring to the table.

The COVID-19 pandemic also caused a number of early retirements, which included some forced early retirements due to staff reductions in the face of a lack of elective surgeries being performed.

A Lack of Educators

Nurses require extensive training, and they need to receive much of that training from other nurses. As more nurses and nursing educators continue to retire, schools are left with fewer and fewer qualified candidates to educate the next generation of professional caregivers.

Fewer educators mean fewer classes, which means fewer nursing school graduates.

Burnout

The nursing shortage itself also plays a role in reducing the number of nurses in the country. With so many understaffed hospitals, the workload placed on nurses can be tremendous, leading to burnout, which is a major factor in some leaving the profession.

This burnout was also exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as there may have never been another time in American history when more strain was placed on the nursing workforce. Some found it to be too much to take, and they left the profession altogether.

Choosing Family over Career

More than 87% of all nurses in America are women, which can lead to a fair amount of conflict when those women decide to start families. Some nurses find that their places of work don’t support them properly with family care benefits, which can lead to a choice of family over career and a loss of more experienced nurses from the workforce.

Your Skills Will Be in High Demand

With the fourth fastest-growing occupation in the country losing so many members of its workforce following the events of the COVID-19 pandemic, you can expect that someone with your knowledge and skills will be highly desirable after you’ve completed your nursing education.

There are plenty of jobs out there for you to seek out, which means you’ll be able to keep your options open.

Working Conditions May Not Be the Best

The nursing shortage affects patients, but it also affects existing hospital staff, and particularly nurses. Fewer nurses can mean more work for you, which can be quite stressful and difficult, especially for someone new to the job. You’ll likely have to take on a heavy workload and many patients, which is known to increase burnout.

You may be able to avoid the added stress and pressure caused by the nursing shortage if you find your way into a well-staffed nursing specialty, such as neonatal care.

Certain specialties are far less affected by nursing shortages than others, which means those jobs are more difficult to get, but if you were to find your way into one, your working conditions would likely be far better.

It May Be Harder to Get into Nursing School

As ironic as it sounds, it’s actually harder to get into nursing school now that the shortage is so severe. The lack of educators limits the number of students schools can accept, and with a tremendous flood of applicants, the standards for getting accepted are inevitably going to be higher.