Paper
Friday, July 13, 2007
Augmenting the U.S. Nursing Workforce with Foreign Educated Nurses
Shannon E. Perry, RN, PhD, FAAN, School of Nursing, Retired from San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA
| Learning Objective #1: Briefly describe the nursing shortage |
| Learning Objective #2: Provide a profile of nurses seeking licensure in the U.S. |
The current nursing shortage in the United States began in 1998 and is expected to grow until 2020, when there will a shortage of over one million nurses. As baby boomers age and the need for health care grows, the shortage will intensify. Because of a shortage of nursing faculty, 41,683 qualified applicants were turned away from schools of nursing in 2005. Recruiting graduates of foreign schools is being used as a solution to this crisis. Individual migration of nurses, nationally and internationally, is contributing to the shortage, especially in developing countries. Foreign educated nurses are seeking licensure in the United States. Who are these nurses? Where do they come from? What is their educational preparation? How old are they? In 2004, the International Education Research Foundation (IERF) began evaluating transcripts of nurses for licensure purposes. Since then, IERF has examined applications to seven states of 187 nurses from 125 schools of nursing in 41 countries. Of the applicants, 81% were female and 19% were male. Age of applicants ranged from 22 to 60 years with 49% between the ages of 30 and 39. The educational preparation was assessed to be at various levels: 51% BSN, 24% diploma (hospital school of nursing), 10% ASN, 10% vocational/licensed practical nurse, and 1 family nurse practitioner. While we have no data on whether these applicants were actually licensed, this means that there is potential for augmenting the U.S. nursing workforce with nurses, the majority of whom hold the baccalaureate, who are in midcareer, with years of experience. In addition, these nurses add to the rich cultural diversity that exists in the U.S. We are fortunate that these nurses seek licensure in the U.S. but we have not assessed the impact this migration has on their home countries.