People hoping to become nursing students in Texas apparently face some significant challenges. More than 50 percent of qualified nursing student applicants had to be turned away from nursing school programs in Texas in 2004-2006, according to a newly released study by the Texas Center for Nursing Studies.

The reason they were turned away, according to the report, is that there are not enough staff to teach them. Nursing schools find it difficult to recruit enough qualified teachers (master’s level) because the salary for nurses is up to $20,000 less than it would be for nurses working in the private sector, such as in hospitals or doctors’ offices.

And things may get even worse, because the report says that 70 percent of current nursing faculty are eligible to retire now or in the next ten years. Also, according to the Texas Center for Nursing Studies, there is a 16 percent vacancy rate in some areas of nursing. This makes sense, because if not enough nursing students graduate, there won’t be enough nurses.

How does this affect patient care?

Well, Texas doesn’t have a law mandating how many patients a nurse can be assigned to care for, according to the Texas Board of Nursing. If a hospital cannot hire enough nurses, then each nurse must see more patients. Of course, this will affect the level of care that the nurse can provide to each individual patient.

In fact, Texas nurses have been advocating for the passage of a law similar to the one passed in California in 2004, requiring a nurse-to-patient ratio. And since that law passed, 80,000 new registered nurses have come to California. So one way Texas could attract more nurses is to create a mandatory nurse-patient ratio to ensure the safety of nurses and patients, and create a better work environment for nurses.

The Texas Center for Nursing Studies has made some recommendations to help recruit and retain more nurses, including: Increase the salary of existing staff; offer student loan forgiveness programs for nursing faculty; and recruit minority, younger, and non-traditional students to become nursing professors.