Sarah E. Jorgensen RN, left the nursing profession after being a part of the emergency field for seventeen years. In her article Heres why I left nursing she talks about how the field took a toll on her. Leaving the nursing profession is bittersweet. My heart left nursing a while ago when I came to the realization that nursing left me first. It never was a two-way relationship. The profession left me without acknowledgement of work-related stress, specifically post-traumatic stress (PTS) (Jorgensen). Nursing gave her a lot of things in life, both in a positive and negative light. Having the right mental and physical strength to complete this job isnt always enough when it comes to working in such a demanding field. Jorgensen talks about how nursing was never a two-way relationship and that is completely understandable. In reality the struggles nurses suffer through takes a toll on their men
tal and physical strength. With the intensity and the demands of having a job in the health field, the daily life, long hours and stress along with the conditoins nurses are working in, it is too critical for nurses to handle,which are causing them to leave their jobs. In the March 2005 issue of Nursing Economics, Dr. Peter Buerhaus and colleagues found that more than 75% of RNs believe the nursing shortage presents a major problem for the quality of their work life, the quality of patient care, and the amount of time nurses can spend with patients. Looking forward, almost all surveyed nurses see the shortage in the future as a catalyst for increasing stress on nurses (98%), lowering patient care quality (93%) and causing nurses to leave the profession (93%). What researchers are asking now is what can we do to stop this. A nursing shortage impacts the entire world–Something must be done.