SURVEY 1.4 MILLION REGISTERED NURSES COULD LEAVE NURSING by ASRN staff October 15, 2018 | ISSN 1940-6967American Society of Registered Nurses Commentary: I am a Registered Nurse with 38 years of work experience ranging from staff nursing at the bedside in a hospital setting, and working for the past 17 years as a Nursing Educator at a Community College. Unfortunately, the nursing shortage discussed in this article is of no surprise as the anticipated shortage you write about has been looming for years. Although an unprecedented loss of precious nursing brain trust has been anticipated and some strides have been made, road blocks remain and time is running short. Initial efforts to offset the shortage focused on increasing interest in the Nursing profession and recruitment of students into Nursing Programs to assure a pipeline of qualified RNs. Lo and behold, several savvy advertising campaigns successfully managed to inspire an onslaught of interest. However, the potential Nursing Student candidates were met with many barriers in achieving their Nursing Education due to academic systems being unable to accommodate them. There were simply not enough qualified Nursing faculty to teach the students, nor the academic institutional and clinical site capacity! This drew attention to another shortage area: Nursing Faculty. The good news is that more nurses have stepped up to advance their education to fill Nursing Faculty positions. However the needs for qualified Nursing Faculty remains. Compensation is one barrier to recruitment because in spite of requiring additional education and credentials to teach, the compensation has not kept up--in many cases wages are less than a staff nurse\\\'s. Additionally, cost can impede the expansion of a Nursing Program as they are expensive to run. Some academic institutions increase capacity--creating another challenge of locating adequate and appropriate student placements in clinical sites. How do we compel current RNs to remain in the nursing workforce? It has been estimated that \\\"burnout\\\" is the cause of many nurses leaving the profession within 3-5 years of graduation! What do nurses need NOW that would improve their work life and make it less likely they would leave their career prematurely? What do nurses say they need to keep their heart and minds engaged in their careers? The work can take an emotional toll. How are we supporting nurse\\\'s emotional, mental and spiritual health? We need to ask the nurses who are at the bedside delivering care under impossible circumstances such as short staffing, layers of burdensome processes and insufficient support for their contributions to achieve quality patient outcomes. Finally, how can we incentive nurses who may be planning to retire to remain active in the workforce in a substantial capacity? The wealth of experience and mentoring capability of this group of nurses is invaluable in bringing up the ranks of new nurses. What do these nurses feel would keep them in the workforce? I suspect it has much to do with helping them have the health care and retirement benefits that help them enjoy a quality of life with less stress as they age. Ideas should be sought after and generated from the very nurses who work within the health care systems themselves. Nurses are a creative, critical thinking bunch with problem solving skills in the core of their bones whose ideas may help resolve the healthcare debacle we are on a path to face in the near future. A common mantra that I heard time and time again during my working life: \\\"If you want a job done and done right just give it to a nurse\\\". So I suggest we get busy asking nurses: \\\"What is it you need to get the job done?\\\" Lynn Smolarkiewicz, MSN, CMSRN Nursing Faculty Kellogg Community College, Battle Creek, MI 49017