Bright spot: Health care still a growing field
For Celebrating Nurses
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Layoffs, business closings and dismal financial forecasts dominate the news. Many once-strong economic sectors are in critical condition, yet the prognosis for the nursing job market is not only healthy, it’s bright.
Nurses have skills and training that are in demand today and will be needed in the future, Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond said.
Barry Williams / AJC Special
David Bennett, associate dean of the College of Health and Human Services at Kennesaw State University, teaches a health assessment class. ‘Nursing skills are great ones to have and no one can ever take them away from you,’ he said. ‘You can change roles — even create your own — without having to completely go back and retool.’
BARRY WILLIAMS / AJC Special
‘Nursing is one of the most secure professions out there, and one that offers so many opportunities.’ - Anjalie Graham, student at the Nell Hodgson School of Nursing at Emory University.
Barry Williams / AJC Special
Nursing student Marcia Haughton listens intently to David Bennett during a health assessment class at Kennesaw State University.
“Projections say that health care will continue to grow, primarily because of demographics,” Thurmond said. “We’re all getting older, living longer and [we are] going to need more health care services, and that’s good security for health care workers.”
Health care topped the list of growth industries nationally in 2008, adding 355,700 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nurses make up the majority of that work force.
“Nursing is one of the most secure professions out there, and one that offers so many opportunities,” said Anjalie Graham, a nursing student at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University.
After she earned a bachelor’s degree in peace and justice in 2005, Graham was visiting a friend in Tanzania and deciding what to do with her life.
“I worked in an orphanage, taught a little English, but didn’t feel like I had skills to do much,” Graham said. “Then I visited a friend’s child in a malaria ward and it hit me — nursing. I could do that.”
A friend told her about Emory’s BSN/MSN segue program for students who hold a degree in another field and want to become a nurse practitioner. A Fuld Fellowship, which supports nursing students who are commited to social responsibility, made it possible for Graham to attend Emory.
“I’m from Montana and I want to practice community health in a rural area. I’ll probably go back out West, since that’s home,” said Graham, who will graduate with a BSN degree this month and from the MSN program in 2010.
She’s focusing on emergency care to gain the skills she needs to practice in remote areas.
“I’d also like to go back overseas at some point. This time I’ll have skills I can use,” she said.
Plenty of options
When a degree in biology brought no job offers during the tough economic climate of the 1970s, David Bennett became a nurse.
“In terms of job stability, it seemed like a good idea, and that’s just as true today,” said Bennett, now associate dean of the College of Health and Human Services at Kennesaw State University. “I have consistently had a job, and when I got bored, I found another.
“There was always something else I could do. Nursing has always been fresh for me.”
Bennett worked in hospital emergency departments, at a rural doctor’s office, as a nurse supervisor with a clinical nurse specialist degree, and as a nurse educator after earning his doctorate degree.
“These days, one of my hats is planning the new health science building going up on campus,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun to use my nursing education knowledge to make sure we get the most from the space.”
As a nurse, Bennett found great satisfaction in seeing patients get better. As a nurse educator, he’d like to be remembered for helping nursing students get to where they want to go.
“Nursing skills are great ones to have and no one can ever take them away from you. You can change roles — even create your own — without having to completely go back and retool,” Bennett said. “And despite the recession, students who want a job will find one.”
Still in demand
“Nursing graduates will find a job, but they may have to look longer and harder, and they may not get their first choice of locations,” said Denise Flook, coordinator for workforce initiatives for the Georgia Hospital Association.
Although Flook sees some hospitals cutting back on hiring new graduates due to the cost of training them, she still considers it a good job market.
“Nursing salaries haven’t decreased,” she said. “We still need nurses in Georgia and, with the average age of a nurse being 48, we will continue to need them.”
With the number of elective surgeries down and hospitals tightening their budgets, the days of large signing bonuses for nurses are over, except for hard-to-fill positions, “but clinical staff would always be the last to go,” said Merideth H. Northcutt, director of recruitment at Gwinnett Hospital System.
People will always get sick and nurses will be needed to deliver safe, quality care, Northcutt said.
But the effects of the economic crisis are evident in the profession. As spouses have been laid off, Northcutt has seen more nurses request additional hours. Other nurses have returned to the work force through re-entry programs, and some new nurses have come to the field as a second career.
Northcutt values second-
career professionals for the maturity and knowledge they bring to the job.
“People don’t realize how many career paths nurses can take,” she said. “Once you have a clinical background, you can work in a hospital, clinic or doctor’s office; for a corporation as an occupational health nurse; for a law firm as a legal nurse expert; as a case manager for an insurance company; as a school nurse; for the public health department or other government agency. You can also become a nurse educator or a nurse researcher.”
Back to school
Jane Conaway believes nursing is one of the few fields where age isn’t a drawback.
“People see the maturity in my face and figure I can handle things,” Conaway said. “I went back to school at 53 to get my nursing degree at Kennesaw State University.
“I had worked as a secretary, office manager and insurance agent for 20 years, but had always wished I’d gotten my nursing degree. With the nursing shortage, it seemed like the right time.”
Conaway hadn’t set foot in a classroom for 37 years, “yet made it through on a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” she said. “No one ever made me feel inferior or different. Everyone just encouraged me.”
Conaway graduated in May 2007 and took a job as a family planning nurse for the Cherokee County Health Department. She had done a clinical rotation there and felt right at home.
“I go home every night knowing that I made a difference in someone’s life,” she said. “I think this is a fabulous career and there are so many facets to it.
“If I get tired of clinical care, I can always go into administration. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.”
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