Nursing: Hot Job, High Pay -- So Where Are the Takers?

Good News for Nurse Training?

Nurse training programs receive less in the way of government subsidies than do medical programs. A 2007 study by the PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute found that "nursing education programs often lose money for colleges, limiting colleges' willingness to expand their programs and raise faculty salaries."

But Dracup said there is some good news on the nurse training front: Some not-for-profit groups are tackling the issue, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation is offering scholarships for would-be nurse faculty members and is also providing money to subsidize their research.

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Some prospective faculty members don't need new programs or incentives to get going.

Maja Djukic, 29, who has worked as a staff nurse for 10 years, said high stress on the job is part of what's prompted her to pursue a career in academia instead.

"You go to work and you try to take care of the patients, and you are just not able to do that the best way you know you can," the New York woman said.

The Dark Side of Nursing

Dean Caputo, the Michigan nurse who scrounged for supplies at his last hospital, once felt the same types of frustrations voiced by peers like Djukic.

Today, Caputo is happy working as a nurse manager at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich. The hospital has been recognized for its nursing programs by the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

But Caputo said he still hears horror stories from nurses who recently left other hospitals to join Beaumont.

The conditions that Caputo and other nurses faced explain why, experts say, hospitals often have a hard time retaining hard-to-get nursing talent.

The challenges facing hospital nurses are, in part, budget-related. Even when they don't cut nursing staff, hospitals facing a cash crunch may choose to cut other positions, including housekeeping, janitorial and dietary staff. That means it's up to nurses to do more in the way of keeping track of patients' meals, changing sheets and cleaning rooms -- duties that take away from the time they have to provide patient care.

But other issues are more philosophical. Nurse satisfaction often depends on whether nurses are viewed as active members of the medical team, or just another pair of hands, said Loyola University's Walker. Hospitals "need to think of them as thinking people. ... That's been the challenge these days," she said.