Consider nursing This demographic shift is expected to hit nursing especially hard. The nation is already suffering from a shortage of registered nurses, especially those who staff such specialized facilities as emergency rooms and intensive-care units. And it's not just retirement that's causing the problem. There's also stagnant pay, more job choices for women and fallout from the tribulations of managed care. The national decline in nursing school enrollments is hardly a light at the end of the tunnel.
Most observers agree that the shortage is a reality in Maine.
Skewed predictions of the nursing supply in the early 1990s led schools to reduce class sizes, explains Paul Weston, executive director of the Downeast Regional Office of the Acadia Health Education Coalition. Paula Squires, vice president for human resources at Maine Medical Center, says that nearly half of her 200 job openings are for registered nurses. The Labor Department projects that between now and 2006, registered nursing will account for the greatest number of new jobs in Maine, some 2,434. Paula Squires, vice president of human resources at Maine Medical Center, has about 200 job openings, about half of them for registered nurses. Still, despite the real challenges of nursing, there are compelling reasons to go into it.