Ain't this the truth! http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_15443123?source=rss

As a nursing student, Courtney Hansen trained for the unexpected. Now a nursing graduate, the training has come in handy: Unexpectedly, Hansen is finding it tough to find a nursing job.


"When we all started nursing school, we thought, 'We're going to get sign-on bonuses and a job right away,'" said Hansen, a 27-year-old graduate from Moorpark College's nursing program.

"Now that we've graduated, we get responses back from hospitals that say we're not taking new graduates."

Hansen's job situation is increasingly becoming common in California, where 40 percent of new nursing graduates may not find work as quickly as they thought, according to a survey conducted last year by the California Institute for Nursing & Health Care.

Researchers interviewed employers and found that even with the state's projected nursing shortage, the sour economy has encouraged more seasoned nurses to stay on past retirement or else re-enter the profession.

"With fewer nurses retiring or working part time, positions typically available to new nurses have dried up and hospitals and health systems have cut back dramatically on new graduate hires," Deloras Jones, the executive director of the California Institute for Nursing & Healthcare, wrote in a report released in June.

"As a result, an alarming number of new nurses are unemployed, opting for non-nursing jobs, or moving out of state to seek employment opportunities."
The trend is of concern to many, especially deans of schools who worked hard to revive nursing programs after many were dismantled in the 1990s during the California recession.

At California State University, Northridge, where hundreds apply each year to an accelerated nursing program for those already with a bachelor's degree, some graduates who waited to get into the program are now waiting for employers to hire them.

"Some of our (accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program) students have had some difficulty in finding their first nursing position," said Brian Malec, professor and chair of Health Sciences at CSUN.
"This has resulted in a delay of a few months only," he said. "A large number of our graduates received job offers before they graduated."

But Malec also noted the poor economy has contributed to more established nurses taking on extra shifts because a spouse may be out of work.

"The (hospital) CEOs have told me that right now hiring is tight but there is what you might call a hidden shortage underneath the surface, and thus the hospitals continue to encourage and support our program to produce more nurses," he said.

In her report, Jones calls the dilemma "California's most pressing nursing workforce issue."

At Mount St. Mary's College, where nursing programs also receive a high number of applicants, some recent graduates simply have left the state. "I know for sure one went to Arizona," said Rosanne Curtis, dean of the Nursing Department at the college.

"This is a regional issue," she said. "There are places in the country that are hiring nurses, but there are many of our nurses who are rooted in this community."

The lack of vacancies at hospitals for new hires may derail all the efforts many in the industry have done to avoid a nursing shortage.
By 2020, more than 6 million Californians will be 65 years old or older. Already, the average age of a majority of the registered nurses is 40 years old or older, or five years higher than the national average.

That means California needs to graduate 10,000 registered nurses a year to avoid a shortage.

In 2004, California ranked last compared to other states when it came to being prepared for the shortage. That ranking improved once nursing programs were again funded.

"We graduated more than 3,000 registered nurses (statewide) in 2008," Curtis said. "We've also been able to improve our ranking to 45th. If we lose that now, we're going to be back where we were in the 1990s."

But some say the fault lies with private hospitals that are trying to make too many cutbacks. Back in the 1990s, hospitals streamlined their operations to cope with rising health care costs and shorter patient stays.

As a result, thousands of RNs lost their jobs as hospitals downsized, and others subsequently left the profession because of lagging salaries, long hours and crushing case loads.

"Generally, what we're hearing is there's waiting lists for positions," said DeAnn McEwen, a registered nurse and member of the California Nurses Association's board of directors.

"Hospitals are trying to cater to clients with money or with insurance," McEwen said. "As a result, more nurses are working without meals and breaks. They are staying overtime."

That worries McEwen, who said new graduates may be taking jobs they are not prepared for, such as in nursing homes, where nurse-to-patient ratios are higher. She also said the trend is hard on licensed vocational nurses and certified nursing assistants.

"New grads are having a hard time finding jobs in their community hospitals, in the university hospitals. But it's not because they are not needed," she said.

But some local hospitals say despite the economy, they continue to hire, though the process has slowed down.
"We have 36 openings, and we do receive approximately 350 applications a month," said Jennifer Castaldo, assistant chief nursing officer for Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys.

Castaldo said the hospital works closely with area colleges and even provides scholarships so that new graduates can work with veteran nurses. "It's very important for us to cultivate new nurses," Castaldo said. "It's an excellent balance for quality of care."

At Northridge Hospital Medical Center, new graduates are hired once they have completed an educational program known as Versant.

"We pay a fee to Versant to use their resources, to tell us whether these nurses are competent," said Ann Dechairo-Marino, the chief nurse executive at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

She calls the recent trend a temporary glitch.

"I'd like to keep hiring new grads," she said. "You keep your relationships with the schools. One of the really lucky things for me is we're able to select the best and brightest. I'm really thrilled, and we're getting some really great RNs."

Some in the industry say they are uncertain how programs approved under the recent health care reform will impact hospitals and nurses.

But others say programs need to be developed in the interim so that new graduates can keep their skills sharp, to be ready once hospitals hire again.

"The solution that most resonated was development of community-based transition to practice programs (internships) to keep newly graduated RNs engaged in the workforce and improve employability," Jones of the California Institute for Nursing & Healthcare wrote in her report.

Belinda Gillis, a registered nurse at Northridge Hospital who graduated through the Versant program, said she felt lucky she was hired last year.

Gillis, 30, said she earned a prior bachelor's degree and worked in the mortgage industry before deciding nursing was a career she really always wanted. She had to wait more than a year before being accepted into a nursing program at College of the Canyons.

She now works in the cardiovascular unit at the hospital.
"I'm definitely one of the lucky ones," she said. "There's still people with my class that haven't found jobs."