Yet, the problem doesn't stop there. A surprising number of newly-graduated nurses abandon the career in less than a year. Many new graduates cite the main reason as a lack of preparedness for the responsibilities they face on the job. This, plus conflicting roles on the job and stress from over work contribute heavily to turnover in the nursing field. High turnover also affects the morale of the staff nurses negatively, as they feel discouragement at training new nurses only to have them leave a short time later.

The statistics available for the nursing profession in regards to retention are discouraging, to say the least. Most studies place the rate of turnover between 35% and 60%.(Lindsey and Kleiner, 2005) In one particular case, 93 nurses underwent critical care orientation at a level one trauma center. Within the span of a year, only

The benefits of a nursing residency program:

The University of Delaware program (Diefenbeck et al, 2006) made a shift to remotely supervised field experiences. Field experiences are set up by the faculty and required of the students for graduation, but are completed outside of schedule class time. This places the responsibility on the student to make sure the field experience is completed. The shift of responsibility to the students has saved large numbers of faculty hours, which translates into a substantial amount of financial savings. Teaching Assistants were used to track student completion of the field experience requirements.

That overhaul could come in the form of nursing residency programs. Residency programs have proved useful in other fields of expertise (namely doctors), and promise to address the two primary problems discussed here- that of enrollment and retention. The financial costs of low retention are staggering, and are also damaging to the morale and attitudes of nurses who are responsible for training the new recruits.

The nursing residency program developed at the University of Delaware represents a drastic shift away from the prevailing teaching philosophy in the field. (Diefenbeck et al, 2006) Instead of a teacher-driven classroom environment, the responsibility for learning is shifted to the students, who must provide proof that they have learned the material. The program is designed with two primary functions in mind: to provide content and to certify that the nursing students have learned the material presented in the content. The basic structure of the program is three years of content provision, through coursework, labs and simulations, and field experience. The final year of the program is dedicated to clinical immersion, where the students prove that they have learned the material. This clinical immersion time not only serves as a test of the resident's abilities, but as a hand's on learning experience.

It is immediately apparent that the nursing profession is in dire straits in two fronts- enrollment and retention. Simply put, not enough students are signing up in the first place. Of the ones that do, and continue on to graduate and find a nursing position, a substantial number are quitting within a year. Therefore, it can be concluded that the nursing field requires some drastic changes to met future challenges.

One of the recent innovations developed to combat these problems is the nurse residency program. Residencies have long served to properly educate and prepare doctors for the active practice of medicine. The same principles are applied to nursing in

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