State Sen. Mike Gloor asked the question: How is the nursing shortage being talked about now different from the ones in the past five decades, the ones the state always seemed to soldier through?

It’s different, said Juliann Sebastian, because of the large number of aging Nebraskans and the changes in technology and treatment keeping them alive longer.

And those past shortages — while they seemed to lessen — never really disappeared, said Sebastian, dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing. They kept redeveloping and compounding, she said. [Read more...]