Earlier this week, my class was unfortunate enough to have another classmate drop out of nursing school. This is the tenth person who has dropped out since we started nursing school last fall and drops our total class size to merely 25 students. If 10 students dropped out in 18 months, how many students will be left when we graduate in a year? This makes me wonder whether the drop out rate affects the overall nursing shortage in our country.
It seems that every nursing school has long wait lists and small class sizes. This makes getting accepted into nursing school more and more difficult, as more people apply every year. It seems unfortunate that some willing students are not accepted because their GPA was not as high as another student who ended up dropping out anyway. But how is this problem solved?
After doing some research at my school’s library, I could find no recent studies on the relationship between student nurse drop out rates and the current nursing shortage in our country. How do we help student nurses make it to graduation? Or how do we ensure that those who are accepted into nursing school are the ones who are in it for the long haul?
Now granted there are many reasons why people drop out of nursing school. Family concerns, finances and health concerns are just a few of the understandable issues that can cause a student to withdraw from the program. But what are the reasons that students drop out that are preventable? If we can identify these problems perhaps we can provide the support these students need to make it to graduation.
What are your thoughts on this? Does your nursing school have programs in place to help students make it to the end? Have you found any recent research on the nursing shortage and student drop out rates?
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Are Student Drop Out Rates Affecting the Nursing Shortage?
5 comments:
I'm a nursing student right now and from my opinion the lack of support is the biggest problem. I remember going into clinical forced to do things I was never taught, which causes people alot of anxiety. The your totally on your own attitude has gotta leave the nursing school mentality. A little pat on the back can go a long way. And also army nurses need to stay in the army : )
I agree with Anonymous! I have been in nursing school for one year now (half way through) and I still say to myself "I don't know if I can do this". I come home every clinical weekend depressed. The instructors scream at us. I call the post-clinical conference the "bitch and bash session". They expect us to do things we were never taught, the nurses think we are stupid, but the patients love us. Go figure! Patients tell us they haven't been bathed in days by the nurses or the assistants. I don't know if I would recommend nursing school to anyone. I just hope I can stick it out another year without telling one of my instructors where to stick it!
As a Nurse Pracitioner finishing my docotrate of nursing practice in Dec 2009 I am ashamed of nursing.
My daugher and 2 of her friends who were wonderful people and students enrolled in nursing programs with much encouragement.
I am ashamed that nursing has made it impossible for them - the stress and depression that was caused the UNREASONABLE grading scales- all made it a miserable experience- 2 quit who could ahve made it.
SHAME on nursing education- they are a threat to both the profesion AND patient safety.
right from the beginign you opress and subjugate the very people that need to stand up for themself and their patient.
I can honestly say that nursing school is very stressful. The instructors give us the minimal amount of teaching they can get by with. You are really on your own and if you can't perform, you are penalized by getting "points", which is outright ludicrous. If you are paying for instructions, then you should be receiving them and not getting points for something that wasn't taught to you.
I am currently in nursing school and am struggling to get through. I would not recommend nursing school to anyone. There are not enough instructors, and as a result, we (the students) do not get the clinical hours we need to learn "hands on". I have seriously thought of dropping out, but I have invested alot of time and money into training. I also have remitting/relapsing multiple sclerosis and my instructors do not know this. I hope I can get through school without having an exacerbation of my illness.
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