At state and national meetings that I attend, the number-one issue is workforce, whether it is nursing, physicians, or other hospital staff. So, why the shortages and what can we, as a profession, do about it?
ASA has examined workforce issues in the past with studies by the RAND Corporation (asamonitor.pub/3C4YuWu; asamonitor.pub/3D7D4WV). These extensive studies used multiple methodologies to determine whether an anesthesia workforce surplus or shortage exists, including a demand-based analysis and an economic approach. According to the 2009 study, we needed to increase the supply of anesthesiologists by 3,800 full-time equivalents (FTEs) to meet the demand, and nurse anesthetists would need to increase by 1,282 (that is with a clinical work week of 49 hours for anesthesiologists and 37 for nurse anesthetists, which was the average in the survey data). At that time, 54.1% of states in the U.S. had a shortage, and the average...
