Nicole Oswell was a straight-A student passionately interested since first grade in following in her mother's footsteps as a registered nurse. But she had to wait two years to get into Los Angeles Trade Tech's nursing program, she said, her frustration mounting as national nursing shortages worsened.
Lizbeth Gutierrez got lucky. Her wait was only six months. But that's because she won a lottery for a space at East Los Angeles College, one way that nursing schools overwhelmed with applicants now select students. There are currently 17,000 qualified California applicants waiting to enter nursing programs and more than 130,000 in other states.
As nationwide nursing shortages threaten to balloon to more than 1 million over the next several years, healthcare organizations are grappling with a range of problems, including how many foreign nurses to import, how to increase spaces at overcrowded nursing schools and how to make sure that students allowed in the programs complete them.
Some are lobbying for larger quotas for foreign nurses. But many experts -- and aspiring nurses themselves -- are also urging policymakers to expand opportunities for Americans clamoring to become nurses.
"Just the waiting list alone tells you there are tons of people here who want to be nurses," said Oswell, a 25-year-old Minnesota native. "We should give the people who live here the opportunities for those jobs."
With growing urgency, policymakers are aiming to do just that with a flurry of initiatives to accommodate more California nursing students. This week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is set to accept a $3-million grant from L.A. Care Health Plan to open a new nursing program at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center.
Last week, the California Wellness Foundation sponsored a media tour of an East Los Angeles medical clinic and two educational institutions to highlight the shortage of healthcare workers and encourage more young people, particularly minorities, to consider the profession. The foundation said 51 of California's 58 counties are facing shortages of workers in nearly 200 allied health professions.
UCLA reopened its undergraduate nursing program last year after a 10-year hiatus, and several medical centers are partnering with other colleges to increase nursing school spots. In the San Fernando Valley, for instance, seven hospitals and five community colleges are collaborating on a two-year, $1.8-million pilot project to produce 100 more slots for nurses.
