If you’ve recently been a patient in a hospital or seen your physician, you most likely experienced the impact of our nationwide nursing shortage. Longer wait times, delayed care and even patient harm can all result from an inadequate number of nurses to meet rising demand.
South Carolina already has too few nurses and is expected to be among the four states with the worst per capita nursing shortage by 2030, when our state will have an estimated 10,000 vacancies. It’s a problem that will only worsen if we fail to attract more qualified people to the profession.
I recently spoke with two potential nursing students who had just graduated from high school and chosen nursing as their desired profession. One planned to apply to a state university and the other to a local community college. What struck me during these conversations was the level of effort and preparation they both committed to ensuring admittance to a nursing program.
One was completing her dual high school and associate degree while also studying for the required admissions test.