While demand for students in medical fields increases, the needs just aren’t being met.
Employers in nursing, medical technology and clinical laboratory science are hurting for qualified graduates to work in hospitals.
Graduates in medical technology and clinical laboratory science are being offered sign-on bonuses of up to $4,000 and, with a 15 percent vacancy nationwide in the fields, can find jobs virtually anywhere in the country.
Kathryn Doig, MSU’s director of medical technology and clinical laboratory science, says the shortage is because of the nation’s good economy.
“The impact of a good economy is, when people can find good jobs, they don’t go to school,” Doig said. “Some people who might have selected this profession might be doing other things.”
That’s good news to the 285 students enrolled in MSU’s program who likely will - upon graduation - be offered well-paying jobs in pharmaceutical industries and industrial laboratories.
The bad news, however, is that means a personnel shortage in health care programs.
“If those businesses are growing, the results are there aren’t enough graduates for the demand,” Doig said. “Even applications to medical schools are down as of late.”
Medical technology and clinical medical science refer to areas of the medical profession focused on performing tests on bodily fluids, such as blood and urine.
Dr. Kevin Cavanagh, the technology director of Ingham Regional Medical Center, 2727 S. Pennsylvania Ave. in Lansing, said as the population of working professionals gets older, the worker shortage will only get worse.
“Having people to perform tests is an important part in lab data,” he said. “We started training backup to meet the needs of the hospital.”
Cavanagh said several national agencies, such as the College of American Pathologists, have been trying to facilitate ways to keep workers in the profession. Medical technologists being sought to work on the Human Genome Project, for instance, could potentially be working in hospitals.
But most opt for the higher-paying job.
“Hospitals are getting squeezed,” he said. “The job market is so good right now, industry is grabbing what’s available.”
The nursing field is experiencing the same problem. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nurses, entry-level enrollment in nursing programs is in its fifth year of decline.
In the fall of 1999, nursing students enrolled in bachelor’s degree programs fell by more than 4 percent, while master’s degree enrollment declined by nearly 2 percent.
Carol Feuss, director of communications and integrated marketing at the Michigan Nurses Association, said her organization is currently working on ways to attract potential nursing students. Officials are even recruiting as young as grade school to attract people into the profession.
Jim Lake, human resources consultant at Ingham Regional Medical Center, said the greatest cause of the shortage is the end of “traditional” professional roles for women, such as teaching or nursing.
“Women have a much wider variety of choices than 10 to 15 years ago,” Lake said.
Professional nurses generally start out earning between $30,000 and $35,000 annually, and those staff-level positions usually top out at $10,000 more. In most other professions, there’s potential for more dramatic pay increases.
Lake said the intense pressures associated with nursing - 12-hour shifts, high patient acuity and high workload - don’t mix well with applicants.
“Part of it is long-term wages,” Lake said. “We’ve got an aging population, and nurses play a role in long-term care. Large sign-on bonuses won’t do any good if nobody’s graduating.”
Lake said sign-on bonuses can be as high as $10,000 in some areas. But compare a nurse’s top annual salary of around $50,000 to a doctor’s average of $500,000 for a similar job, and there’s no wonder why nursing is neglected, Lake says.
“The demand on your skill,” he insists, “is as high as anything you’ll go into.”
Vincent Estes can be reached at estesvin@msu.edu.
