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Thursday, October 5th, 2023

Overworked and Understaffed, More Than 1 in 4 US Nurses Say They Plan to Leave the Profession

Author:     Melissa Suran, PhD, MSJ
Source:     Journal of the American Medical Association | doi:10.1001/jama.2023.10055
Publication Date:     4 October 2023
 Link: Overworked and Understaffed, More Than 1 in 4 US Nurses Say They Plan to Leave the Profession
Stephan:  

While the House has become what amounts to a bad psychedelic circus, the American illness profit system is breaking down, maybe burning out would be a more apposite term. This paper in the leading medical journal explains what is happening with nurses. Add to that something similar with physicians, medical deserts, maternity mortality, and on and on. Yet, except for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and a few others do you hear anyone in public office talking about creating a transition into a universal birthright single payer equitably distributed health care system focused on fostering wellbeing not profit?

Nurse burnout Credit: iStock.com / SDI Productions

Many of the 4.5 million registered nurses in the US may be ready to quit. A 2022 national survey of almost 335 000 registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and licensed vocational nurses published earlier this year by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) found that more than a quarter planned to leave the profession by 2027. A subanalysis estimated that about 100 000 registered nurses had already left the nursing workforce, possibly due to burnout from the COVID-19 pandemic—mirroring results from an analysis of 2021 data.

Looking ahead, the figures are grimmer: in an April statement, NCSBN projected that the US may lose an additional 800 000 registered nurses within the next 4 years, “threatening the national health care system at large if solutions are not enacted.”

But it’s not yet time to panic, according to Linda Aiken, PhD, RN, MN, a professor of nursing and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also the university’s founding director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research. Intention isn’t action: not all nurses who […]

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