When I attended nursing school 30years ago, occupational health and emergency medicine were overlooked. We had excellent rotations through all aspects of nursing except those. I became an ED nurse after graduation and loved it, learning on the job how to handle acute trauma and medical emergencies. Later, I went into occupational health, for better hours and a less frenzied pace, and found once again I needed some training. Perhaps the schools offer more instruction in these areas today.

D. Sue Benton, RN
Howell, MI

I wish advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) were part of the curriculum for nursing students. In most facilities, ACLS is a "wish to have" skill for all nurses. While it's not a requirement, the ability of a new nurse to recognize a patient needing ACLS and understand its algorithms would help even veteran nurses respond correctly when a patient's condition deteriorates quickly. Too many nurses outside of EDs are not comfortable with ACLS. Patient outcomes would improve, and new graduate nurses would feel more confident in being part of a team responding to a code-blue situation if they were at least introduced to ACLS as part of their nursing education.

Jayne Earls, RN, BSN
Corpus Christi, TX

I wish I'd been taught how to deal with difficult administrators. These issues never came up in school because we were focused only on learning nursing procedures or patient care. But being a nurse also involves interaction with administrators, some of whom aren't "people" persons. I would have appreciated some insight on how to facilitate needs professionally.

Helene Traill, LPN
Barrington, NH

More leadership responsibilities need to be taught and practiced. Conflict resolution is another common issue when working with nursing assistants.

Linda Babb Webster, RN
Florence, SC

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What would be the effect of recruiting foreign nurses to address the nursing shortage?

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