Working in Health

"An estimated shortage of over 4 million doctors, nurses and other health workers in developing countries acts as a major roadblock to economic and human development. Working in Health considers the fiscal issues in expanding the health workforce and the policy options available to governments. Through case studies in Dominican Republic, Kenya, Rwanda, and Zambia, it also examines recruitment, promotion, and pay policies in the public sector and their important influence on health workforce performance."

published by The World Bank. Click on title to access ebook.

NANDA-International Congress 2010 ~ Madrid Spain

Dr. T. Heather Herdman, NANDA-I Executive Director, is sponsoring two $800 scholarships for the 2010 Madrid Congress (May 12-14).
Intended for nurses in practice within developing countries [which includes much of the Caribbean], the deadline for application submission is December 1, 2009. (Applicant must be a licensed nurse in professional practice, residing in countries listed as Class II or Class III in this linked document, as well as a first-time NANDA-I conference attendee.)

Nursing Faculty Shortage Update: AACN

"In July 2009, 803 faculty vacancies were identified at 310 nursing schools with baccalaureate and/or graduate programs across the country [US]. Besides these vacancies, 117 schools cited the need to create 279 additional faculty positions to accommodate student demand. The latest data show a national nurse faculty vacancy rate of 6.6% with most of the vacancies (90.6%) for faculty positions requiring or preferring a doctoral degree. The top reasons cited by schools having difficulty finding faculty were noncompetitive salaries compared to positions in the practice arena (32.2%) and the limited pool of doctorally-prepared faculty (30.3%)."

Reported in Medical News Today from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) .

Job Seekers check out the 'Applicant Blog'

The Applicant Blog has gathered seven useful SlideShare presentations for job seekers, along with other great stuff.
Worth your while!

Informatics: The Future of Nursing

"Marrying the clinical with the technological creates professional opportunites for information nurse specialists."

Have you considered specializing in Informatics?

"Information Nurse Specialists combine the expertise of nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage data gathered while caring for patients, and then making sure the IT system will aid in communicating that data to the appropriate personnel and carry out specific functions.... their role involves planning, designing, implementation, evaluation, systems maintenance, and supporting the system development life cycle along side their other professional colleagues."

Did you know that the average annual salary for information nurse specialists is approaching $85,000 annually? There are currently around 8,000 nurse informaticists but the need is 10 times that number with the wireless phenomenon happening, the need to access information at point-of-care, the EHR initiatives, the push for EBN, and other informatics developments.

Brain Drain ~ A CARICOM Dilemma

Interesting article by Rickey Singh, posted Sunday, August 16, 2009 in the Jamaica Observer . The article discusses the shortage of medical professionals serving the Caribbean region.

"According to data revealed by Caricom's Assistant Secretary General, Dr Edward Greene, this region has lost some 50,000 doctors, nurses and teachers over the past 11 years who have migrated to North America, Britain and other foreign countries.

Dr Greene, who shoulders responsibility for Human and Social Development at the Caricom Secretariat, in referring to research findings of 2006, has disclosed that accompanying the severe loss of professionals was also the drain on the public purse for money invested in training nurses and teachers in particular, with migrated nurses alone accounting for approximately US$2.02 million."

Click on the title link to read the complete article.