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According to a 2002 report to the state Legislature, Arkansas needs 1,925 registered nurses to enter the workforce each year. The state's nursing schools are graduating 683 RNs, so the state is running at a deficit of 1,102 RNs every year.

According to Paul Cunningham, a spokesman for the Arkansas Hospital Association, the state has about 1,100 open, budgeted positions in Arkansas hospitals, according to the AHA's last survey.

The combined pay for these positions is not quite $60 million and using the common 2.5 multiplier, the economic impact checks in at not quite $150 million, or as the report noted, "equal to 14 new Toyota or Nestle plants in the next seven years located in all regions of the state."

The nursing shortage in Arkansas mirrors the national trend toward not enough nurses, and the reasons are many.

"The acuity, meaning how ill you are before you obtain healthcare, has gone up because insurance has cracked down so much on what they will pay and how long they will pay for, so people seeking medical services are sicker than they have been in past years," said Brenda Womack, a RN and a professor of nursing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. "There has been hospital downsizing, closure of beds and that sort of thing. The baby boomers as they age, that's another issue, especially here in Arkansas."

So the need for nurses is going up in the state. What is Arkansas doing about it?

In some ways, not much, but that isn't the fault of the nursing schools.

Part of the problem is the lack of qualified teachers.

"Definitely a nursing faculty shortage," Womack said. "You have to have a master's [of science in nursing] degree and many of those aren't in education."

A nursing instructor can be on track for an MSN degree, as well.

The MSN is key. Sherry Bowman runs the LPN school for Pulaski Tech on its North Little Rock campus, but, "I couldn't teach at an RN school. I have a master's, but it isn't in nursing, so I would not be considered qualified unless I went back to school."

The 2002 report to the Legislature found that, of the nurses studied, 78 had graduated the previous year with a master's in nursing. Four, who were not already nursing educators, went into education.

"We are also graying," Bowman said. "We are all getting older and we are all getting closer to retirement and that is not just an Arkansas problem, but a national problem."

The 2002 study showed that the average age of doctoral level faculty was not quite 54 years. The pay difference was substantial; the study showed instructors were making $10,000 to $20,000 less than their counterparts in clinical settings.

Little Rock has three large nursing schools and each is unique. UALR has an associate's degree program with satellite campuses in Benton and at St. Vincent. Baptist Health, the state's largest healthcare provider, has partnered with Pulaski Tech, the junior college in North Little Rock, for a diploma-based program on the health education campus on Colonel Glenn Road, and UAMS has a bachelor's of science in nursing program.

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