Jobs!

After teaching the first sessions of my two fall classes, I can share a major concern of entry-level masters of nursing students: jobs.

At least in the San Francisco Bay Area, hospital-based new graduate orientation programs largely ended with the economic downturn beginning the last quarter of 2008. Although the professional nurse population in America is aging, the recession caused many nurses to postpone or come out of retirement, at a time when hospitals may have to cut back related to dwindling profits, or limited public funds.

With Baby Boomers turning 65 beginning in 2011, including a lot of our current nursing workforce, I wonder about ideas for grant proposals or business plans that might help increase employment opportunities for new graduate nurses. Are nurse managers and health care administrators waiting for health reform to kick in?