Technology improves the practices of medicine, and nursing. It will continue to advance year after year. In order to prepare students to handle such changes, nursing education needs to evolve accordingly. Embracing these new technologies enables us to become nursing professionals who are prepared to provide the best possible patient care.
New grads are entering the field during the perfect storm of a bad economy, job shortage, and nurse retirees who are back to work because their retirement portfolios are no longer robust enough to support their retirement. So, the problem becomes how to stand out in the sea of applicants?
Let’s face it. Some managers will just toss any new grad’s resume right in the trash, no matter how concise, how detailed, or how well-thought out. Well, if they’re that biased, you didn’t want to work for them anyway, trust me. So don’t worry about the no-callbacks (easy to say, hard to do, I know). DO worry when they call you back, and you’re up for an interview. That’s when the pucker factor can really kick in, because now you can no longer hide behind a piece of paper…it’s show time!
There is a grave need for nurses in nursing homes. According to the New York Times, 90 percent of U.S. nursing homes do not have adequate staff. A 2002 Health and Human Services (HHS) report found that 86 percent of 43 states reported inadequate staff numbers.
In 2004, there were 917,400 nurse related staff members in the U.S. nursing homes. These nursing staff members provided care to 1.5 million residents in all of the United States. Here are the numbers and the ratios in relation to nursing home residents:
Last May, I took a trip abroad to Nairobi, Kenya, with fellow classmates for one of Chamberlain College of Nursing’s international nursing service projects. The two-week trip is designed to immerse nursing students in an impoverished community outside of the U.S. to provide healthcare to people in need. As a Bachelor of Science in Nursing student at Chamberlain’s St. Louis campus, the project also fulfills my multiculturalism and community health course requirements.
