Career mobility: equipping nurses for health care beyond the year 2000

Nurses are faced with uncertain employment in today's rapidly changing work place. The key to survival in this environment is to provide innovative, cost-effective, yet outcome-oriented methods of patient care delivery. Professional nurses and nursing students should make career mobility their watchword. Career mobility defines a planned trajectory which is flexible, role-expandable, and capable of adjusting to the sudden changes in direction which arise as nurses progress through their professional career. Nursing students must carefully examine the educational program they chose, and, once graduated, should use an innovative approach to the health care job market, with emphasis on professional nursing careers outside the traditional employment roles.