Diversity: an answer to the nursing shortage

Profound changes are occurring in nursing and the health care world. Two of the changes that are the most profound are the nursing shortage and the changing image of nursing. Although we must retain our current nursing workforce, we also must work diligently to recruit young men and women of diversity into our profession. Faculty will have to respond to the academic needs of the diverse students and will have to develop new and creative nontraditional teaching strategies to meet the students' needs. It is within the shared integrity of learning that diversity is recognized and acknowledged by educators and students and that valuable learning takes place. It will only be with improvements in recruitment and education that nursing will incorporate the much-needed diverse nurses into our profession to help meet the nursing shortage and to facilitate improvements in the changing image of nursing.