Managing the Healthcare Crisis: The Career Narratives of Nurses

Abstract

The aging population has created an increased demand of healthcare services in the United States that is expected to increase over the next four-years creating a heightened demand for medical services. While nursing is currently the largest employment sector within healthcare; there will be a shortage of nursing professionals to withstand the surge of patient medical needs unrelated to the national pandemic. This study aims to capture insights from male and female professionals within the Wisconsin healthcare system. Wisconsin is a state in the north central United States (Midwest) with a total population of 5,822,434 as of the year 2019. Wisconsin is the context for this hermeneutic phenomenological study and is compounded of 72 total counties with 23.3% of the state’s population working in educational, health care, and social assistance workforce sectors. As of 2018, 10,356 LPN’s, 80,000 RN’s, and under 1,000 NP’s renewed licensures to practice in the state of Wisconsin. This study discovered that organizational culture, mental and physical health opportunity costs, and nursing school rigor contribute to a larger shortage of nurses. Nurses who were interviewed shared lived experiences to illuminate factors influencing career choice and satisfaction, which is imperative to retaining and recruiting nurses to fulfill workforce labor demands.