Projected nursing shortages by 2026, by state. Click image to expand.

Exhaustion and burnout. Insufficient workplace protections. The growth of contract nursing. A lack of minimum staffing ratios.

These and other issues have been important nursing topics since long before the pandemic. But as the essential work of nurses has come under a brighter spotlight during the COVID crisis, headlines and news stories have been increasingly highlighting these important topics, providing wider recognition of nurses’ experiences and concerns.

In just the past week, a sampling of headlines from across the country show how nursing workforce issues are taking center stage, from insufficient workplace protections in California to state legislatures considering capping travel nurses’ pay in Missouri to workforce shortages in Pennsylvania to unsafe working conditions in Maine.

Liz Seegert explores where the profession stands as the country enters the third year of the COVID pandemic in the February AJN Reports, “The Current State of Nursing.” She notes the results of recent surveys, including one by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses that looked at how the pandemic has affected nursing.

“Exhaustion, frustration, anger, burnout, depression, and fear for their own […]