Survey: 35% of Baby Boomer Nurses Plan a Career Change in the Next One to Three Years

Survey: 35% of Baby Boomer Nurses Plan a Career Change in the Next One to
Three Years
Most agree that today's physicians are more respectful

SAN DIEGO, March 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Over one-third of baby boomer nurses
plan to retire in the next one to three years, find a non-nursing job, work
part-time, or work as travel nurses, a new survey indicates.
Conducted by AMN Healthcare, the largest health care staffing firm in the
country, the survey of 1,830 nurses age 45-60 suggests that many baby boomer
nurses may be facing career burn-out. About 46 percent of those surveyed said
that working as a nurse has become less satisfying in the last five years,
about twice the number who said nursing has become more satisfying. Less than
half of those surveyed (43 percent) said they would choose nursing as a career
if they were starting out today, and only about 48 percent said they would
recommend nursing as a career to their children or to other young people.
Number one on the list of job frustrations for those surveyed was nurse
staffing shortages. Over 80 percent of nurses identified nurse staffing
shortages as one of their top professional frustrations.
Over 1,250,000 nurses in the United States are between the ages of 45 and
60, notes Marcia Faller, RN, executive vice president of AMN Healthcare.
Should even ten percent of these nurses retire or find non-nursing jobs in the
next one to three years, over 120,000 nurses would be removed from the
workforce.
"It is critical that we find ways to keep baby boomer nurses engaged in
patient care," Faller observes. "Without them, we will be hard pressed to
meet the needs of baby boomer patients."
On a positive note, 58 percent of baby boomer nurses surveyed said that
physicians being trained today are more respectful of nurses than are
physicians who trained ten or twenty years ago. Twenty-four percent said that
newly trained physicians and older doctors are equally respectful of nurses,
while 18 percent said newly trained physicians are less respectful of nurses
than are older physicians.
"Positive working relations between nurses and physicians are key to
promoting nurse retention," Faller says. "Improving these relations helps
keep nurses in the clinical workforce."
Results of AMN Healthcare's 2008 Survey of Nurses 45 to 60 are available
at http://www.amnhealthcare.com.
About AMN Healthcare
AMN Healthcare is the largest healthcare staffing firm in the United
States. The company is the largest nationwide provider of travel nurse and
allied staffing services, temporary physician staffing services (locum tenens)
and physician permanent placement services. AMN Healthcare recruits
healthcare professionals both nationally and internationally and places them
on variable lengths of assignments and in permanent positions at acute-care
hospitals, physician practice groups and other healthcare facilities
throughout the United States.
SOURCE AMN Healthcare

Phil Miller, +1-469-524-1420, pmiller@mhagroup.com, for AMN Healthcare