There is an existing major void in the ranks of nursing professionals that is growing rapidly. Politicians such as Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have both offered up a universal health care plan that would make health care affordable, but neither really does anything to address the need to promote more people to enter into a nursing career. Neither has done anything that would alleviate the nursing demand that will only increase as more people swell the ranks of retirees in the US.
Canada, our neighbor to the north, has a universal health care plan, but they too have a nursing shortage. Making health care accessible for people that can not afford it won’t amount to a hill of beans if people show up for their free health care and do not have nurses and doctors to care for them.
“Thanks for Nothing!” will be the quote of the day aimed at Hillary or Edwards or anyone else that brings in Universal Health Care without a Universal Health Care professional recruiting movement.
The politicians need to include a movement in their plans to help swell the ranks of medical professionals. We need a rapid way to get people into the medical profession, trained and capable of dealing with the sick, aging and more. We need something that utilizes all of our resources from existing nursing school infrastructure to technology through online nursing education options to ‘hands on’ residence training.
MOTC - Medical Officer Training Corp
Maybe we need something that emulates the ROTC program in colleges, except it would not be military in nature. It would be system that helps to fund school for people interested in becoming nurses and requires a 6-8 year commitment after they complete school. Maybe even an extra couple years of commitment if the future nurses pick up a specialty in areas where more help is needed.