Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: In the years since World War II, the United States has grown increasingly dependent on foreign-born healthcare personnel at all levels of the healthcare system. Currently, 1.46 million immigrants account for 15% of all healthcare providers in the United States. (Clearfield & Batalova, 2007). Current estimates indicate that 17% of the total U.S. nursing workforce are foreign-born, a dramatic increase from 1998 when they were approximately 4.5% of the total (Brush, Sochalski, & Berger, 2004; Spry, 2009). Recruiting foreign-born nurses has been recommended as a solution to the U.S. shortage of nurses (Xu, 2003; Gamble, 2002; Neal, 2002) and as a means of diversifying the nursing work force to meet the needs of an increasingly multicultural patient population (Abriam-Yago, Yoder, & Kataoka-Yahiro, 1999). The American Nurses Association (ANA), however, questions the ethics of recruiting nurses for immigration to the United States. The ANA objects to the resulting “brain drains” in less wealthy nations as well as the failure to remedy the root causes of the nursing shortage in the United States (Trossman, 2002; Buchan & Aiken, 2008). Nevertheless, shortages in the U.S. health-care labor force are not expected to disappear anytime soon (McMahon, 2004; Buerhaus, Auerbach, & Staiger, 2009; Ellenbecker, 2010) and reliance on immigrant professionals is likely to continue.
Source: Language learning & technology
DOI: 10.64152/10125/44347
Institutions: University of Washington, Seattle Public Library
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2187768448