Nursing shortage

[Ricu]

Living Dead makes a good point about recruitment. How do we get young people interested? Our area high schools host career days at which the healthcare professions are usually well represented. The kids shuffle around and hear everyone's pitch but I think signing them up for a tour of the hospital and a day of job shadowing might do more to stimulate interest. I've had high school students job shadow even in the ICU. The healthcare profession needs all the constructive PR it can get and at the very least, the students would have a memorable experience.

R

[Ixtlan]

I am completing my MBA concentration in healthcare management (I will be 96% complete by summer of 08). I am Asian Indian and previously owned a real estate business for 10 years. My hobbies are improving historic houses, Koi ponds (built 3 so far), landscaping, nature, traveling, and natural food, cooking, traveling and making new friends. I am scared to death to apply for the MSN program since I have not seen any Indian male nurses. I am not sure how minority male nurses get treated during the process in the nursing school. Also with MBA/MSN, can anyone decide to go into administration without practicing clinical aspect of it? What are the benefits of having MBA and MSN instead of just having a MBA with healthcare administration? Are there any Indian male nurses in this field? I would also like to get some information to the universities that are two year program for non-nurses and enjoy a diverse body of students. Preferably a nursing program, where 50% are males instead of only 10 to 11% standard male enrollment in most universities.

I'm a male nurse and it's tough. I talked with a very high authority in the nursing education business and she told me that I had three problems to overcome.

(1) I'm male
(2) I'm older
(3) I have prior experience in health care.

My advice: Keep you mouth shut, take the tests, get out of there. You'll do fine.

You're not going to find a nursing program where the ratio is going to be that high. I'm surprised there are programs where the ratio is as high as 10%. I found no problems from other students being male in a class full of females. I found that there was a problem with the attitude of the instructors and I had that confirmed by my contact.