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EMT Sara DeMatteo (left) and RN Laura Sacra check a patient on Stafford Hospital's first day last March.
Wanda Brooks (left) and Amanda Strickland, both CNAs, work at a nurses station at Stafford Hospital. |
BY CHELYEN DAVIS
It's commonly believed that nursing is one profession where you can always find a job.
That seems especially true in Fredericksburg, where the upcoming opening of the Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, a year after Stafford Hospital opened, means more jobs for nurses--and also means nursing programs are having more trouble accommodating prospective students than they are finding jobs for new graduates.
Germanna Community College's nursing program saw its largest number of applicants ever this year, said Dean of Nursing Mary Gilkey--more than the college has room for.
"I still can't enroll the numbers I'd like to because I am limited" by space and other considerations, Gilkey said. "We are working so hard to see how we can admit more students. The need is there."
She said the local hospitals are very supportive partners, helping the college with scholarships and equipment. And those hospitals then hire the school's graduates.
"They know the product and they want to hire the product they've been part of," Gilkey said.
Nationally, registered nurses make up the largest health care occupation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A bureau report says the job outlook for nurses is "excellent" over the next year, although it can vary by geographic location.
"Employment of RNs is expected to grow much faster than the average," says the report--an estimated 581,500 new jobs from 2008 to 2018, a 22 percent growth rate.
At the new Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, slated to open in June, chief nursing officer Nancy Littlefield said she has received 9,000 applications for 400 jobs.
"I did not expect that many," Littlefield said.
Many of those applicants are experienced nurses, she said, either from other health care organizations in the area or from Richmond and Northern Virginia.
Overall, Littlefield said, the job market for nurses is "very good."
But the highest growth areas for nurses are not in hospitals, but in doctors' offices, nursing homes and other facilities. The growing demographic of older people, who increasingly prefer home health care or residential facilities, is contributing to that.
Hospitals are expected to have the lowest growth rate in the profession.
According to the labor bureau, that's due in part to the move toward more procedures being done on an outpatient basis.
That, plus the economy, can make it harder for new nurses to get jobs in hospitals. At Mary Washington Healthcare, for example, turnover has been just around 2.5 percent, said Barbara Kane, senior vice president and chief nursing officer for the Mary Washington Healthcare system. The company has about 1,400 nurses across the whole system.
Kane said some nurses are staying on the job longer than they'd expected, postponing retirement.
"Right now a lot of our nurses are choosing to work a little bit longer. That's probably economy-driven," Kane said. "So we don't have the openings that we have had in the past."
Even in good times, Kane said, the nurse turnover at Mary Washington Healthcare usually hovers below 5 percent. It can be difficult for a new nurse to get a job there.
Kane said the system is looking at hiring some new graduates this year, but that new nurses can lack required experience.
The system's Web site lists numerous openings for nurses, but most seem to require, or at least prefer, a minimum of a year of experience.
Kane said the system looks for a mix of experienced and new nurses. Often, jobs for new graduates go to nurses who've been through the system's extern program. That program pairs nursing students with working RNs for several weeks, to help give the students clinical experience.
Still, Kane said there are a lot of opportunities in hospitals for nurses looking to expand their education and experience, and she said the Mary Washington system works hard to create a good working environment for nurses.
"We really do bend over backward and see what we can do with nurses who are looking for a job," Kane said.
Chelyen Davis: 540/368-5028
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com
