DAVENPORT, Iowa — More than a quarter-million registered nurses. That's about how many nurses have left the profession since 2020, according to a recent report from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.
The NCSBN is the organization that grants nursing licenses in the U.S. Its study is believed to be the first-ever national study done that directly correlates the pandemic's effects to why RNs and licensed vocational and practical nurses are quitting en masse.
"Increased workloads, stress and burnout have significantly strained the current U.S. nursing workforce, and the pandemic has disrupted traditional educational models," NCSBN Director of Research Dr. Brendan Martin said at a press conference in April.
The study also found 100,000 RNs and 34,000 LVN/LPNs directly blamed the pandemic for quitting.
For a few RNs at Genesis Medical Center's east campus, they agreed that an unexpectedly higher workload since the pandemic has led to feelings of burnout.
"I think during the pandemic, a lot of people were so afraid to come out to the hospital because they knew there were sick people here, so they stayed home longer," Elyse Morales, 37, of Davenport, told News 8's Collin Riviello. "So by the time they got here, they were just more sick."
Morales is currently a charge nurse in Genesis' Surgical Specialty Unit. She says she's been an RN for eight years, sometimes working 12-hour shifts in succession and often missing out on breakfast and lunch because, in her mind, the patient comes first.
"It's a lot of stress because us as nurses, we take it upon ourselves to make sure that if you're a patient of ours we're taking care of you," Morales said. "A lot of times that's hard if we have five patients with very high acuity. So going home and feeling unsuccessful about your day can really burn you out quicker."
It's a sentiment felt by more than 62% of RNs across all specialties who say they've experienced an increased workload since 2020, according to the report. Even more eye-opening is that more than half of all nurses reported feeling, "emotionally drained, used up, fatigued and burned out at least a few times a week, if not every day."
These working conditions have led to a mass exodus of nurses quitting the profession, with the report citing burnout as the top reason 800,000 RNs and 160,000 LPNs/LVNs say they're planning to quit entirely by 2027.
"Considering I work three days a week, it's probably at least once a week where I don't feel adequate enough to where I didn't take that great [of] care of my patients because maybe one of my five patients was more sick than the others," Morales said.
Even more alarming for the profession is that about a quarter of those 800,000 RNs who say they'll leave are "younger nurses"— those who the NCSBN considers as having 10 or fewer years of experience.
As of December 2021, there were 5,239,499 active RN licenses and 973,788 active LPN/LVN licenses.
However, Dr. Martin says while the study highlights a growing problem in the industry that needs to be addressed, there is a "silver lining."
"The presentation of these critical results will follow [to] serve as an urgent call to action to tailor policy solutions aimed at fostering a more resilient, sustainable, and safer U.S.," Martin said.
Spurred on by a greater awareness of the industry's shortfalls and a higher median annual salary, the report shows the nursing population is getting younger as newer nurses are entering the field at a higher rate than in 2020.
The median age of RNs dropped from 52 in 2020 to 46 in 2022; for LPNs/LVNs, the median age dropped from 53 to 47. Earnings-wise in 2022, RNs received a median salary of $80,000 and LPNs/LVNs received a median salary of $50,000, which is $10,000 and $6,000 higher respectively than in 2020.
Bella Collins, 27, of Davenport is one of those younger RNs. She went through St. Ambrose University's Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program in 2020, graduating in December 2021.
"It was when I was scribing in the [Emergency Department at Genesis before the pandemic] and seeing all that nurses do when that really made me decide I wanted to be a nurse," Collins said.
Now an RN working alongside Morales at Genesis, Collins said when she was making her decision to become a nurse, she was generally aware of the working conditions that likely awaited her. But her desire to help others get back on their feet was stronger than any possible apprehension she may have had.
"I know that I want to be here, and I want to be doing this," Collins said.
Relying on her co-workers when she's feeling overwhelmed helps her to manage her mental health.
"I have time to go home and decompress," Collins said. "I know I can decompress outside and inside of work with my co-workers, friends [and] family. That's just how I handle it."
In the 13 months since earning her RN license, Collins has felt fatigued, but never to the point of wanting to quit. A striking contrast to Morales who says she's thought about quitting at least once within the past five years.
"Sometimes we're stuck with a really difficult patient," Morales said. "And that might make us say it more often."
But as for why she hasn't actually thrown in the towel is the same reason Collins hasn't thought of quitting.
"The people I work with, the doctors I work with, the [patient care technicians] I work with, everybody that works here is my only reason why I'm still here," Morales said. "We definitely know that if we express [feelings] to our co-workers that they're more than happy to be like, 'Hey, like you said, I got the next med pass' or 'I got the next turn' or 'I'll go get the IV beat for you'."
Teaching future nurses to take care of their mental health is something Trinity College of Nursing & Health Sciences chancellor Dr. Tracy Poelvoorde says is a targeted learning outcome for all students.
"How to care for yourself when you're caring for others is something we begin from day one," Dr. Poelvoorde said. "You have to be healthy in order to take care of someone else."
Last fall, the school finished renovations to an outside recreational area on campus, giving students an open area to study and enjoy outdoor games like basketball and bags. The project was planned before the pandemic began but Dr. Poelvoorde says seeing the aftermaths of its toll on health care workers, only solidified the need to focus on mental health in the classroom.
"We have health and wellness, foremost in all of the courses that we teach," Dr. Poelvoorde said. "We also throughout our curriculum, integrate behavioral health in all of our courses. So we're talking about wellness, and how to be healthy and well."
And like Collins, who wasn't fazed by reports of some hospitals being over-capacity and nursing strikes occurring across the country because of the pandemic, Trinity Master of Science in Nursing student Gabriela Valdez also isn't scared of entering the nursing workforce.
"For me working in the emergency department is just settling somebody's nerves on the worst day of their life," Valdez said days before her graduation. "Sometimes we're all somebody has, especially in that moment."
She's currently an emergency technician at UnityPoint Health — Trinity in Rock Island and has been working towards her degree.
"A lot of people who come in, they don't get any other interaction except aside from a health care professional and if you can just comfort somebody while they're in distress or let them know that you're there [or] provide them with some kind of resource, I think that that's amazing you can do that," Valdez said.
She says it's the experience she's gained as an ET and through her nursing clinical practicums at school that gives her confidence she'll be successful when she becomes a full-fledged RN.
Valdez plans to work at UnityPoint Health — Trinity in Rock Island in June as an RN. Both Morales and Collins say they plan to continue being nurses at Genesis for the foreseeable future.
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