Research Paper on:
Proposal for Increasing Nurses' Salaries

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
of the ongoing nursing shortage have been more than only problematic for some time. As existing nurses begin reaching retirement age or simply choose to leave the working conditions  that currently exist (i.e., mandatory overtime and heavy patient loads), the shortage becomes more acute and it becomes doubly important to attract greater numbers of individuals to nursing. A  proposed solution is to increase nurses salaries significantly, for the purposes of (1) attracting greater numbers of individuals to the profession; and (2) retaining current nurses while striving to improve  conditions. The Problem In 2005, Ritter (2005) provided an attention-getting headline in Chicago: "Imagine calling for a nurse and having no one respond"  (p. 18). This is the attention-grabbing statement in a report by the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council made in 2005. In a self-perpetuating cycle, the nursing shortage now has  begun promoting itself by means of a shortage of nursing educators. In the beginning, the worst of the problem was that nursing was  not attracting enough new students into training programs and university nursing majors. As nursing salaries and options came to be more respectable compared to other industries and professions, greater  numbers of young students came to believe that perhaps nursing would provide an outlet for caring natures as well as support a family if necessary.  Ironically, the very act of following the "law" (i.e., supply and demand) of economics now has exacerbated the shortage of nurses who also are qualified to teach and  willing to work in the classroom rather than in the hospital. The shortage in areas of direct patient care have led to a situation wherein nurses without advanced degrees