Welcome to Episode 20 of the Haelan Nurse Chronicles. I’m your host Dr. Lorre Laws, a nurse, author, and trauma-burnout expert. In today’s episode we’re going to discuss a recent Medscape article written by Jodi Helmer titled Recruiting Nursing Students: New Approaches to Filling the Healthcare Gap.
In the midst of a nationwide nursing shortage, healthcare facilities are grappling with the challenge of filling an estimated 193,100 registered nurse job openings. Hospitals and outpatient clinics are resorting to various incentives such as increased salaries, signing bonuses, and enhanced benefits packages to attract and retain nursing staff. However, the long-term solution to the nursing shortage lies in enrolling the next generation of registered nurses in nursing school.
This episode will delve into the innovative strategies being employed by nursing schools to recruit and graduate more nursing students while also examining the root cause of the nursing shortage . . .which isn’t technically a shortage but rather an unwillingness . . .a rightful refusal of today’s nurses to work in unsafe, understaffed, under-resourced, and often violent workplace settings. Nurses are waking up to the fact that they are being traumatized in their roles. They are responding to this often avoidable nurse-specific traumatization by tapping out of the profession all together.
As we explore the landscape of nursing education and recruitment, it becomes evident that traditional approaches are being complemented by creative and forward-thinking strategies to attract diverse groups of students to the nursing profession. From dual degree programs to direct-entry Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) programs, schools are adapting to meet the needs of the changing healthcare environment. But none of these strategies get to the root cause of nurse vacancies, the mass exodus of nurses leaving the profession. Nursing schools can and do educate excellent nurses. What they can’t do . . .what I can’t do as a nursing professor . . .is prepare them for the Trifecta of Trauma they will encounter as soon as they pass their licensure exam and enter practice.
This Trifecta of Trauma is the single most important factor that deters nurses from entering or staying in the profession. As a seasoned nurse educator, I can attest to the fact that the AACN Essentials offer zero guidance in preparing nurses for the Trifecta of Trauma (individual + unavoidable + avoidable nurse-specific trauma). Sure, there are the usual self-care and resilience guidelines, but none of those address the root cause of nurse safety, professional wellbeing, and role longevity. It’s like building a brand new house on a crumbling foundation. Without education and training for the language of one’s autonomic nervous system and vagus nerve, the substantial Trifecta of Trauma exposure quickly becomes unmanageable, depleting bodily systems right down to the mitochondria.
Self-care and resilience development strategies that don’t explicitly address nurse-specific traumatization are a recipe for burnout, nurse PTSD, and attrition.
The Medscape article goes on to cite nurse faculty shortages as a factor – and this is accurate. Nursing schools are turning away approximately 66,000 qualified applicants each year. The same old narrative regarding lack of budget, pay gaps between teaching and practice settings, lack of clinical sites, limited classroom space, and a shortage of clinical preceptors persists. Yet this article failed to report that nurse educators, too, are experiencing nurse-specific traumatization in their roles as well.
Nurse educators endure all forms of nurse-specific trauma exposures; vicarious trauma, historical trauma, workplace violence (often in the form of bullying, gaslighting, and incivilities), system-induced trauma, insufficient resource trauma, etc.
The recently proposed Nurse Faculty Shortage Reduction Act takes a “show me the money” approach to addressing the issue. Yes, the clinician-educator wage gap assuredly needs to be addressed. There shouldn’t be a median salary differential of over $32,000 between APRNs and nursing professors. In my own personal case, it has cost me $320,000 in lost wages – excluding retirement contribution differentials – in the last decade alone. This absolutely needs to be addressed, but money is not the root cause.
Until we address the systemic nurse-specific traumatization epidemic globally, the nursing profession and our patients will continue to suffer.
With humility and respect, I must challenge this quote by Dr. Linda Plank (PhD, RN, NEA-BC):
“The healthcare field needs more nurses,” Plank said. “Nursing schools have a huge responsibility in trying to help out with the nursing shortage.”
I can’t help but wonder why the responsibility for literally everything falls on the backs of already overworked, burned out, and traumatized nurses? Why are we not calling into the “responsibility equation” the healthcare organizations that systematically inflict avoidable nurse-specific traumatization on the global workforce? What aren’t they, too, “hugely responsible”?
Dr. Plank’s statement resonates as another statement in a longstanding narrative surrounding nurse historical trauma. Nurses need to do this, fix that. Nurses need to be more resilient or manage their stress better. Where is the healthcare system and organization’s responsibility to create safe, well-resourced practice settings so nurses can thrive in their practices? It doesn’t matter how well educated or trained a nurse is when they are repeatedly traumatized in their practice.
It’s not the nursing school’s sole responsibility to help out with the nursing shortage. Stop blaming the victim by unduly placing responsibility on nurses when system inadequacies are largely to blame.
It is the healthcare system’s responsibility to provide safe working conditions.
It is the healthcare system’s responsibility to have structures and processes in place to prevent avoidable nurse-specific traumatization.
It is the healthcare system’s responsibility to provide resources and support for nurses who are experiencing nurse-specific traumatization.
Stop blaming nurses by implicitly placing the burden on their shoulders when the bulk of it should fall squarely on the shoulders of healthcare systems and organizations.
In other words, stop gaslighting nurses at every turn. It’s a form of avoidable nurse-specific traumatization. It’s a form of covert manipulation that results in self-doubt, low self-esteem, anxiety, and confusion.
Place the responsibility where it belongs and then lets see how nurses thrive instead of merely surviving their practices.
If you or someone you know has experienced any form of nurse-specific traumatization, I urge you to take action now. Please attend my Nurse Trauma Masterclass or schedule a call with me to start the healing process. Visit my website at drlorelaws.com/webinar to learn more.
Until next time, thank you for all that you are and do.
I see you.
I feel you.
I hear you.
And I am here for you.
From my healer’s heart to yours,
Dr. Lorre 💕