With promising news early in 2021 that Ontario universities saw a 17.5 per cent increase in applicants to nursing programs, it is easy to envision a future generation of RNs and NPs eager to provide expertise on the frontlines. These motivated individuals are absolutely needed, but they won’t get through the rigours of nursing school and become prepared to practise without some changes that today’s students and new grads say are needed to make the transition from the classroom to the clinical setting.

While thousands of eager students embarked on their studies last fall, thousands of others graduated the previous spring entering the nursing workforce at one of the most uncertain times in our history. COVID-19 has laid bare the failures of a health-care system in which nurses, exhausted from relentless waves of the pandemic, are facing burnout and considering leaving the profession in larger numbers than expected. 

These hardships are not lost on the students and new grads who are expected to take their place.