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Welcome: Guest - Please Register or Login Region: Select Region	Physician Recruiter Publication On-Line Wednesday - November 19, 2008

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Filling the Nursing Void
Las Vegas nursing jobs are in abundance, but there doesnt seem to be enough qualified workers to fill the available positions. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the state of Nevada as a whole ranked No. 49 in the nation for its number of nurses.

The report found that there are only 604 nurses for every 100,000 residents, which is drastically lower than the national average of 825 nurses for every 100,000 individuals. Robert Mains, a research analyst for New York based investment brokerage Morgan Keegan, said that Las Vegas has less nurses than most other areas in Nevada.

Mains went on to say that Las Vegas nursing jobs arent the only ones in the industry that are difficult to fill. According to him, Las Vegas has traditionally had shortages of everything, even nurse aides. Because of this, employers continue to raise salaries in hopes of attracting workers.

Not only do those with Las Vegas nursing jobs receive larger base salaries as an incentive, but they also have many opportunities to work overtime. Due to the fact that may hospitals and care facilities simply cannot hire enough staff members, the only way to keep patient care standards up to regulations is to allow willing nurses to take on extra shifts and be paid accordingly.

The number of Las Vegas nursing jobs is only going to continue to grow, according to Beth Ludden, senior vice president of Genworth Financials long-term care insurance office. She says that the industry needs 200,000 new workers every year in order to keep up with the number of aging baby boomers.

As it is, area schools can not train enough graduates to fill all of the available healthcare jobs. A faculty shortage in this field has colleges limiting the number of hopeful nurses they accept each year. Because of this, many hospitals and other care facilities are now recruiting new nurses from the surrounding states when possible.

If the nursing shortage continues to worsen as some expect, the search for staff members will likely extend outside of the U.S. Many are already suggesting that recruiting from other countries is the only way to fill the vacant nursing jobs in a timely manner.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press is featuring a piece today on the all too familiar and all too alarming trend toward a shortage of physicians in the US. This article, titled "Chattanooga: Turning away from surgery" specifically addresses the concern over a future lack of general sugeons based on trends seen at the University of Tennessee College of Medicines campus in Chattanooga.

Here's an excerpt:

Mainly for me its the predictability of schedule, he said. General anesthesiologists work shift work, and when your shift is done, you go home.
The number of general surgery residents here who practice as general surgeons is falling, said Dr. Phillip Burns, chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Tennessee College of Medicines campus in Chattanooga.
Whereas 15 years ago 75 percent of our (general surgery residency) graduates here would be going into general surgery practice, its now down to about 25 percent, Dr. Burns said.

The trend is raising concern among health care officials nationwide who see a declining number of general surgeons. Surgeons are leaving the field because of declining reimbursement, increasing malpractice premiums and exhausting schedules that require on-call duty. They often migrate to subspecialty fields that offer better pay and hours.

We have a shortage of surgeons, and physicians in general, that is coming on like a freight train in this country, Dr. Burns said. If we dont do something to increase the numbers of surgeons that are graduating and available to go into spots, were going to have huge problems. In 10 years were going to have catastrophic problems.

More:

"Video: General surgeon numbers declining BY THE NUMBERS* The ratio of general surgeons per 100,000 people has declined from 7.68 in 1981 to 5.69 in 2005* 17,922 Number of surgeons in 2001* 16,662 Number of surgeons in the United States in 2005 a 25-year lowSource: Archives of Surgery, April issuePHYSICIAN SPECIALTY SALARIESRanges of annual salaries for:* General surgeon: $249,700 to $336,000* Anesthesiology: $282,212 to $453,000* Radiology: $325,438 to $474,500* Dermatology: $224,630 to $418,789* Family medicine: $142,200 to $190,000SOURCE: Association of American Medical Colleges Careers in Medicine program.

RESIDENCY PROGRAM LIMITSFederal legislation hinders expansion of residency programs, doctors here said.After the federal Council on Graduate Medical Education projected a surplus of 80,000 physicians by the year 2000, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 froze the number of federally funded residency positions, making it a cost burden on training programs to fund new positions.The Residency Review Committee for Surgery also has been conservative in approving new general surgery positions, according to a recent article in the journal Archives of Surgery.Those guidelines should be revisited to get more general surgeons in the training pipeline, said Dr. Phillip Burns, chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Tennessee College of Medicines campus in Chattanooga."

Web News Raises New Questions
The Schwitzer health news blog has an interesting post today regarding the value of on-line discussions as they related to responses to news articles. A couple weeks back, the New York Times published a somewhat controversial column about lack of answers in the treatment of prostate cancer. In 10 days there were over 100 responses to the column, but neither the author nor any representative of the NY Times responded to answer any questions or respond to any concerns. Gary Schwitzer questions the journalistic integrity of such a situation. If a news source throws something out there that elicits response, what responsibility does the news source have to respond?

Being a publisher myself, I have had many conversations with my staff about how and when to respond to Letters to the Editor. We do not receive an overwhelming volume of them, as we publish smaller circulation specialty publications, but our policy has always been that if we receive reader feedback that makes a reasonably valid point, we run it.

That said, on-line media in many, many ways is a different animal than print media. Volume, access and speed have changed the game. The rules are a bit different and remain still largely undefined. Id like to think certain journalistic obligations are unchanged, but Im not sure they are. I have no answer to this, but I thank Gary Schwitzer for raising the issue.

Payola For Docs
The Wall Street Journal has an article today about insurance companies paying doctors to prescribe generic drugs. So, once again, our healthcare and our doctors are caught in the crossfire between 2 of the most powerful lobbies out there -- pharmaceuticals v. insurance. With both lobbies trying to "influence" physicians to benefit their bottom lines, we need our medical professionals to make the decisions that are best for their patients. Period.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120114138064112219.html.html?mod=home_health_right

ER waits are up.
On Tuesday The Washington Post published an article about the growing wait time in our ERs. This one hit home for me as I waited in the ER with a family member for two and a half hours last week with what were seemingly serious symptoms. We went through triage and were asked to take a seat, so we did and we waited and waited and waited. Within 2 minutes of actually seeing a physician, we were informed that the situation was potentially extremely dangerous and my family member was whisked away for a battery of tests. Ultimately, the physician ruled out anything serious, but the tests were required to make that assessment.

My observation in our case was that the ER at this hospital just does not have enough beds to accommodate the local population, which has rapidly increased over the last 20 years. Once we got in there were plenty of physician, nurses and other staff to give each patient plenty of face time, in fact, I observed a fair amount of idle time for most of the staff during the hours we waited for tests and test results.

As our population grows, it seems evident that facilities need to be updated and expanded to keep up with demand along with the need for more healthcare professionals.\

A link to the full WP story is below:

-WJ

Emergency room waits are longer, study finds