Rez facing nurse shortage

Within the next few years, more than half of the nurses across the country are expected to retire leaving a massive nursing shortage nationwide.

Not only will it be important to recruit more students into the medical and nursing fields to offset this shortage, but in areas like the Navajo Nation, it is almost equally as important to find potential students from the area to serve their own communities.

"We have a great need especially for people from the Navajo Nation," said Adriann Begay, M.D., acting supervisor at the Gallup Indian Medical Center's Urgent Care Clinic. "We can't deliver proper health care unless there is a trusting relationship between the patient and provider."

Begay was one of the presenters at the daylong education symposium June 11 at the Navajo Nation Museum. The event focused mainly on distributing information on health care programs throughout the Four Corners region to the crowd of about 300.

Ideally, students could learn about the various programs at the booths in the museum's atrium. They could also listen to the steady flow of presenters talk about their educational experiences and become inspired to leave for school and one day return to the reservation to work, Begay said.

Historically, the Indian Health Service has been staffed by a majority of non-Navajo personnel. Many professionals can excuse all or portions of federal student loans if they work on federal lands for a specified amount of time.

"They only come for short stints, they'll stay for a few years, it happens fast," Begay said.

This leaves little time for doctors and nurses to develop trusting relationships with their patients.

"More likely, people from this area would stay here for their career," she said.

It's also likely that patients would also automatically trust health care providers who they recognize, physically and culturally, Begay said.

Serving one's own community could even inspire providers to excel at an already challenging profession.

"Why would I spend so much time delivering care to people I don't really know?" Begay asked. "These are the people I love."

However, Begay theorizes that students from Native American communities don't normally view the medical field as a realistic path because they don't have many role models they can relate to.

"They don't see it happening enough," she said. "They don't see other people showing them that they can do it."

When she was young, Begay said she was inspired by former vice president Taylor MacKenzie, who was also a medical doctor.

"If I hadn't seen anybody be a pioneer, I'm not sure how far I would have made it," Begay said.

Nearly a quarter of nursing positions across the Navajo Nation are currently vacant, said Jeannette Yazzie, Navajo Area nurse consultant.

That means, of all the available nursing positions across the reservation, 24 percent are unfilled.

Of the nursing positions that are filled, 55 percent are Native American.

"We definitely need nurses from the reservation," Yazzie said.

The nursing shortage is expected within the next few years as the generation known as the "Baby Boomers" continue to retire.

The Baby Boom is the generation that was born following World War II, when reproduction rates throughout the nation skyrocketed. That generation started retiring in 2007 and is expected to cause a wave of a mass exodus from the work force through 2010.

Estimates have the Baby Boomers currently filling more than half of the nursing positions nationwide.

Of course, with events like the symposium, the programs are well on their way to recruiting more potential students like Regina Antonio into the field.

With her son, Leo, recently graduated from Window Rock High School, Antonio was hoping to find some type of inspirational information at the health career fair.

"He's not really looking for himself," Antonio said. "I'm pushing him into nursing."

Her favorite stop was the booth for Northern Arizona University, which was pushing its nursing program that features courses at satellite locations throughout the reservation. But Antonio didn't sound too thrilled at that option.

"NAU is good because it's closer, it's not too far to visit," she said. "Anything around here, Gallup, is too close."

Antonio said with all of the resources suddenly all gathered in one room, she also started looking for information on education opportunities for herself.

"There are a lot of outreach programs where they bring the classes to you," she said. "And it's a good field to get into."

Also walking around the atrium was Tasheenia Bahe, 22, and Shannon Lee, 19, currently nursing students at UNM-Gallup. Both were looking at options for programs they can eventually transfer to.

The most helpful information at the fair was the scholarship programs, Bahe said.

"This is kind of exciting," Lee said. "We can find what schools will offer us the best programs."

For more information on nursing programs, contact Jeannette Yazzie, Navajo Area nurse consultant, at 928-871-1329.

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