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Pat Reidy is the kind of person the nursing profession needs many more of: an experienced nurse who left clinical work to enter nursing education. After 30 years in the field, Reidy joined the faculty of the MGH Institute of Health Professions [MGHIHP] in the fall of 2004. "I wanted to share my passion for nursing and teach the next generation," says Reidy, explaining her decision.

Just how urgently people like Reidy are needed has become apparent from recent studies by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Nursing and other statewide organizations. All these studies conclude that the single most important contributing factor to the nursing shortage is a lack of faculty to teach the next generation of nurses.

Student enrollment in nursing programs is actually growing again in Massachusetts, although admissions have not yet reached levels achieved before the downturn that began in 1997. But qualified students are being turned away because of a shortage of nursing faculty. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported in December that nationally, nursing colleges and universities had turned away more than 32,000 qualified applicants because of a shortage of nurse educators. Massachusetts is no exception. The national organization declared it was "very concerned" about the high number of students being turned away given the national nursing shortage, which is expected to intensify throughout the year 2020.

Nationally, nursing colleges and universities have turned away more than 32,000 qualified applicants because of a shortage of nurse educators

The reasons for the faculty shortage are complex, but as the Board of Registration in Nursing found, the disparity in salary between nurse educators and clinical nurses is the primary cause. Pat Reidy was certainly aware that switching from being an assistant director of medical services at a health center to teaching would mean earning less. "I am very happy I made the decision," says Reidy. "Teaching has advantages which mean so much to me. I find that I am much more autonomous, and teaching is very creative work. I am also using the resources that it provides by pursuing my own education by obtaining a doctorate in clinical family nursing."

One worry Reidy had was that she would miss direct contact with patients. But she is combining teaching with doing clinical work in a health center one day a week. Says Reidy, "It has the additional benefit that I can relate very directly to my students as they are going through their clinical training."

Cammie Townsend, academic coordinator of clinical education at MGHIHP, notes that the shortage of nursing faculty is not limited to the classroom. "We also have a shortage of folks teaching in clinical settings." In fact, there are numerous settings in which nurses transfer knowledge: Nurse managers might be teaching their colleagues on a unit, even as experienced nurses provide training, or "precepting," to new nurses. Often, nurses discover they enjoy teaching this way but they lack the methodology. MGHIHP has recently started certificate programs, many of them taught online, focused on the educational principles and methodologies nurse educators need. "This gives folks who are new to teaching a formal education in teaching theory, while offering folks who are in a clinical setting and want to do some teaching, a chance to explore that," Townsend says.

Like many institutions, MGHIHP is attempting to grow its own future teachers. "We hope that more students take education courses as an elective," says Townsend. "Even though at this point in their lives they are eager to get out there and start working as a nurse in a hospital or a clinic, they might want to teach in the future. We try to impress on them that what you learn about teaching, you can apply to everything."