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“The first thing I would do would be to change the public perception to make nursing’s image accurate,” Dracup said. She recalled a Los Angeles Times editorial in December about the most trusted and respected professions. The article was meant to praise nurses, but called them “angels in white” and talked of “the endearing value of wearing a neat white hat at work.”

“I could hardly get past that,” Dracup said.

“Most of the American public doesn’t realize that nurses and nurse practitioners can write prescriptions, and nurse-midwives deliver babies. They don’t understand the roles that nurses play in health care, nor do they understand the complementary roles between medicine and nursing.

“It’s that public perception that nursing is the assistant to medicine, which is historical but so inaccurate in today’s health care system. I think it is one of the major stumbling blocks to having very talented, smart men and women choose nursing today.”

When prospective students appreciate that nursing is science-based and not a stepchild of health care, it will be up to legislatures to ensure school funding and faculty to accommodate increased enrollment, she said.

In California, “the combination of state budget cuts 85 and faculty shortages have combined to make it very challenging to get into schools of nursing,” Dracup said.

“I would start at the most basic level, which is educating the public and the youth of America about who nurses really are. This is a very passionate subject for me,” said Begeny, whose master’s thesis centers on bringing high schoolers to an understanding of the array of nursing opportunities. Begeny suggested that many young people just see bedside nursing because the media stereotypes don’t feature RNs as clinical nurse specialists, health care and nursing lobbyists and nurse lawyers.

One research question shows that most teens believe a bachelor’s degree is the top level of education for registered nurses, said Begeny, who earned her BSN at Michigan, entered the master’s program and at age 24 has applied to the university’s doctoral program. There, she plans to focus on nursing recruitment and retention, the image of nursing and policy that affects it.

“I think one of the things we forget to tell nurses, especially the ones that work on the units, is how important they are and how much of an impact they do make in everyday life,” Begeny said. Reinforcing that message is the second thing she’d do to alleviate the nursing shortage, and given the chance to take a third action, she would encourage nurses into education.

“I believe in Michigan only 5 percent of nurses have their master’s degree and only one-tenth of 1 percent have their Ph.D. We don’t have a lot of people coming in to teach our future nurses.”