Should the nursing shortage and aging nursing workforce issues challenging the healthcare system continue without resolution, patient care, families and entire communities will suffer from demands that cannot be met. As Jenkins-Clarke and Carr-Hill (2001) maintain in their study on the aging nursing workforce, ôWorkforce issues and questions of professional roles and boundaries, in the context of the graying nursing workforce, demand solutions if patient/client demand is to be met over the next two decadesö (842). BCBS recently provided $500,000 to help research resolutions to the nursing shortage in order to help development and implement solutions to resolve it.

When looking at the nursing shortage and the graying of the nursing workforce, some demographic factors and trends help illuminate possible resolutions. There are economic, political, ethical, cultural, and social issues to be addressed to help resolve this issue. One of the biggest problems with attracting more talented individuals to a career in nursing is economic. Many individuals fail to see nursing as a rewarding career in l

The social issues that impacts the nursing shortage has to do with stereotypes and gender bias with respect to the profession of nursing. Long considered a ôfemaleö occupation, American culture still perceives nurses as ôfemaleö and men who adopt such a profession as somehow less ômasculineö. Proof of this is the character played by Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. A male nurse named Gay Fokker, StillerÆs character is the butt of numerous jokes by males in the film who find his choice of occupation ôfeminineö. According to the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS), of its total membership only 2.9% are male (Loney, 2003). Therefore, mounting an education and awareness campaign among the American public as to the validity and worth of male nurses in order to change gender stereotypes would help in attracting more males to the nursing profession and decrease public resistance to care from them. According to Clark (2002) such ôdifferences influence peopleÆs attitudes and behaviors concerning health, illness and deathö (51).

ight of its