Registered Nurses Priced Out of Housing Market

Washington -Registered nurses are being priced out of the U.S. housing market in most major U.S. metropolitan areas.

A new report by the Center for Housing Policy and Homes for Working Families says fewer RNs qualify to buy a median-priced home in most metropolitan areas. The situation is worst for low-wage earners like nursing aides and home health workers, who are being priced out in all metro areas studied, the Washington-based organizations said.

Hot Jobs of 2007

Jeff Rogers is feeling hot, hot, hot.

As a registered nurse, he has one of the hot jobs of 2007.

"Absolutely, it is hot," said Rogers, who works in the cardiac cath lab at Florida Hospital Ormond Memorial.
Rogers thinks the medical field is so smoking he has influenced his twin daughters and a nephew to pursue health-related careers.

Hospital Leads in Hiring Male Nurses

Neil Williams II, a registered nurse for nearly a decade, still routinely gets mistaken for a doctor when he walks into a patient's room wearing a white lab coat over his blue scrubs.

It's a small reminder that old stereotypes die hard -- despite rising numbers of men choosing careers as registered nurses, and despite years of predictions that men will be key in easing a nursing shortage.

Nursing School Students Decry Planned Lottery

Evergreen Valley College's 90 percent passing rate on the national nursing exam wasn't good enough for Richettia Walker.

Instead, she came to Modesto Junior College.

"I knew it had an excellent nursing program and that the pass rate is high," she said. "I thought 'the curriculum has to be good' and it actually is."

The Price of Admission to Nursing School

ORTSMOUTH -- Valerie Perrinez graduated from the University of New Hampshire last year with a nursing degree and $38,000 in debt.

Now, every month for the next 10 or 15 years, she'll put at least $250 toward paying off her student loans.

But she couldn't have finished school without them.