Nursing shortage: 1 in 5 quits within first year, study says

Newly minted nurse Katie O’Bryan was determined to stay at her first job at least a year, even if she did leave the hospital every day wanting to quit.

She lasted nine months. The stress of trying to keep her patients from getting much worse as they waited, sometimes for 12 hours, in an overwhelmed Dallas emergency room was just too much. The breaking point came after paramedics brought in a child who’d had seizures. She was told he was stable and to check him in a few minutes, but O’Bryan decided not to wait. She found he had stopped breathing and was turning blue.

"If I hadn’t gone right away, he probably would have died," O’Bryan said. "I couldn’t do it anymore."

By Rasha Madkour, Associated Press

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-02-15-nursing-shortage_N.htm