New nursing graduates are finding their chosen profession is not as recession-proof as they had expected. Yet Cabrillo College and others offering training for would-be nurses are being advised not to cut back on their programs. A survey last fall of nearly 1,500 California newly licensed registered nurses found 43 percent did not have a nursing job 18 months after graduating, according to the California Institute for Nursing and Health Care. According to the nurses who were not working, 92 percent said they were told they did not have enough experience, 54 percent told no jobs were available and 42 percent told a bachelor's degree was preferred or required.
There is no quick fix for the state's shortage of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers, a legislative panel meeting in Houston was told Tuesday. Mike Ragain, chairman of the Texas Statewide Health Coordinating Council and chief medical officer of Texas Tech medical school's primary teaching hospital in Lubbock, noted that the problem is most prevalent along the border, where there are 51 doctors for every 100,000 residents, and in rural areas, where there are 91 doctors for every 100,000 residents. Statewide, there are 205 doctors per 100,000 residents, compared with a national average of 259, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Dr. Donald Berwick, the widely admired former chief of Medicare and one of the nation's leading health policy mavens, has just weighed in on the competing proposals for cost-cutting reform in Massachusetts. He argues in favor of aiming for more ambitious cost-cutting targets: The House's tougher goal rather than the Senate's less ambitious one, or even the still-tougher target put forth by business and religious groups.
Dr. Patrick Quinlan will step down Sept. 1 as chief executive officer of Ochsner Health System, handing control of the region's largest healthcare provider to his longtime second-in-command, Warner Thomas. Now the president and chief operating officer, Thomas will become the first non-physician leader for the not-for-profit health system that began in 1941 as a clinical partnership of Alton Ochsner and four other New Orleans doctors. Quinlan, who has led Ochsner since 2001, three years after he joined the organization as chief medical officer, will remain in the system as a governing board member and as director of a new enterprise: the Ochsner Center for Wellness and Health Policy.
At a Capitol press conference on Monday, four groups that fall under the label "advance practice registered nurses" said they can't prescribe medications in many situations, though they have the training to do so, because a 1989 law and subsequent amendments to it have created a quilt of outdated regulations that discourage doctors from supervising them as they prescribe. A study by Waco economist Ray Perryman that says nurse practitioners, certified nurse anesthetists, clinical nurse specialists and nurse midwives could fill many current gaps in the state's healthcare system—and help it survive an expected wave of 6 million newly insured Texans, if President Barack Obama's healthcare law survives.
Nurse practitioners are rolling out a campaign this week to explain what, exactly, nurse practitioners do—and why patients should trust them with their medical needs. Through advertisements, public service announcements and events, the organization will try to raise the profile of the country's 155,000 nurse practitioners. The campaign looks to exploit what many say is a looming doctor shortage. The Association of American Medical College predicts that the country will have 63,000 too few doctors as soon as 2015. The AANP will follow up on the public relations blitz with state-level lobbying efforts, looking to pass bills that will expand the range of medical procedures that their membership can perform.