As a result of burnout, workplace violence and issues with culture or environment, states nationwide are experiencing a nursing shortage, leaving fewer educators to train the new generation of nurses at universities, such as Quinnipiac.

Nursing shortages are not new. Larry Slater, dean of the School of Nursing, notes that they come in waves, however the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic make this one more significant.

“Since COVID I feel like we’ve seen an exacerbation of nurses leaving the profession,” Slater said. “They may have retired… And COVID was a lot for the nursing profession to deal with, and so they just decided it was time to retire.”

Not only did the pandemic cause some nurses to leave, but it “might have impacted how people perceive nursing as a profession,” Slater said.

In Connecticut alone, “there are almost 90,000 registered nurses and about half are practicing nursing,” Dr. Laura Andrews, an associate professor of nursing at Yale University and chair of the Graduate Entry Prespecialty in Nursing, told The Hartford Courant.

And the most recent report from The Connecticut Center for Nursing Workforce shows that from 2023 to 2024, registered nurse (RN) pre-licensure program graduates decreased by 3%. This drop comes after a consistent and steady increase each year from 2017 to 2023.

In addition to nurses leaving after years in the profession, some are also leaving early on.

“We’re seeing some studies showing that up to maybe 30-40% of new nurses are leaving after their first two years,” Slater said. “And they’re not just changing jobs, they’re leaving the profession altogether. So that’s made it really difficult to maintain a robust and stable nursing workforce.”

With many nurses leaving, the shortage takes a large toll on the nurses who continue to stay in the profession.

“It is the idea that we have a shortage (that) makes work that much harder,” Slater said. “So if, when we’re fully staffed, a nurse may have, say, six patients on a unit, because they’re short staffed, they may be having eight or nine or 10, so their regular work day is much more demanding.”

A number of factors go into causing a shortage, with a chain of different effects.

Slater notes that people are often apprehensive about the profession entirely for a number of reasons.

The cost of tuition combined with the struggle of balancing schooling and clinicals cause hesitancy. Slater highlights that these factors are not just affecting young adults just beginning their higher education, but also affecting those considering nursing in a career shift as well.

Not all nurses enter the profession as their first career. For Slater and many others, they take an interest in it later down the road. Slater made a career shift into nursing during a previous shortage.

“(I) went to school for nursing after reading articles that said that there was a nursing shortage, and they needed nurses and it was something that interested me,” Slater said.

However, while many are interested in the profession, there are still barriers like the aforementioned tuition costs and time commitment issues.

“It’s hard for them to go full time to school, work full time because they’re full time in school,” Slater said. “It’s not just classes.”

In response to this, Quinnipiac launched a program with Hartford Healthcare called New Careers in Nursing.

The two-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing program includes only one day of classes and one day of clinical — leaving the rest of the week for studying and working a full-time job.

“These are people we’re finding in this program that never would have come to Quinnipiac for nursing,” Slater said. “They never felt like they had the financial means and the opportunity to do it, because they’re also getting tuition and remission to support that.”

The shortage also affects universities themselves, with one of the biggest issues that schools like Quinnipiac are facing is having less educators.

“The struggle with that is it has to be somebody that really is interested in teaching and wants to get into academia,” Slater said.

With less faculty available, there could be less students who are able to be accepted as well.

Slater notes that Quinnipiac has maintained the number of applicants for the nursing programs, however universities could face the issue of having to decrease the amount of available spots for incoming students.

The shortage also leaves universities to face issues in running out of sites for students to have their required clinical placement. Nearby Connecticut schools are all trying to place their students in the same spots — including Yale New Haven Health, Hartford Healthcare, Gaylord Hospital and Griffin Hospital — however, there are only so many spots available.

“We work together with our clinical partners very well, but they just have that limited space to provide all of us with what we need,” Slater said.