Anew report indi­cates a sig­nif­i­cant rever­sal in the 10-​​year decline in the num­ber of nurses enter­ing the pro­fes­sion. Accord­ing to RAND Cor­po­ra­tion Health Econ­o­mist David Auer­bach, PhD, Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­sity School of Nursing’s Peter Buer­haus, PhD, RN, and Dart­mouth Col­lege Pro­fes­sor of Eco­nom­ics Doug Staiger, PhD, recent find­ings showed a 62% increase in the num­ber of 23– to 26-​​year-​​olds who became RNs from 2002–2009 (Auer­bach, Buer­haus, & Staiger, 2011). This increased growth rate was last seen in the 1970s.

The authors cite sev­eral rea­sons for the turn­around. Among other aggres­sive national recruit­ment efforts, John­son and John­son have a $50 mil­lion “Cam­paign for Nursing’s Future” that was launched in 2002. (Who hasn’t smiled at the tele­vi­sion com­mer­cial with the male pedi­atric nurse singing to the lit­tle girl to dis­tract her as he pushes IV med­ica­tion?) Fed­eral fund­ing for nurse work­force devel­op­ment tripled from $80 mil­lion in 2001 to $240 mil­lion in 2010.

At the same time, the num­ber of two-​​year asso­ciate degrees and accel­er­ated nurs­ing degrees tar­geted to other fields has increased. Because health care is one of the few indus­tries that is con­tin­u­ing to grow and hire, those impacted by the reces­sion and decline in man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs are look­ing at nurs­ing as a sec­ond career.

Although this report is encour­ag­ing and the authors pre­dict that the nurse work­force will grow at roughly the same rate as the pop­u­la­tion through 2030, our work is far from done. We know that the fac­tors influ­enc­ing the num­ber of com­pe­tent nurses in the work­force are more com­plex than sim­ply the num­ber of nurses enter­ing the field.

The chal­lenges for novice nurses to suc­ceed are great. Each of us has a respon­si­bil­ity to teach, learn from, and trade knowl­edge and exper­tise with novice nurses. In Decem­ber, we fea­tured the ONS Foun­da­tion Chap­ter Grants as one way to men­tor nurs­ing stu­dents into oncol­ogy. This month, Con­tribut­ing Edi­tors Chris­tine Merenda, MPH, RN, OCN^®, and Chris­tine Bosley, BSN, RN, OCN^®, inter­viewed some of ONS’s sea­soned nurses for advice on how to men­tor the next generation.

We each have some­thing to con­tribute to the next gen­er­a­tion of nurses, regard­less of the gen­er­a­tions we rep­re­sent. As the ONS Con­nect Edi­to­r­ial Board mem­bers dis­cussed some of our own pearls of wis­dom for the next gen­er­a­tion, one con­tribut­ing edi­tor who is a nurse fac­ulty mem­ber said that she trades nurs­ing care tips with her stu­dents for lessons on using her iPhone.

As you read this issue, I hope you will con­sider how you can reach back and take the hand of a nurse new to oncology.

• Auer­bach, D.I., Buer­haus, P.I., & Stager, D.O. (2011). Reg­is­tered nurse sup­ply grows faster than pro­jected amid surge in new entrants ages 23–26. Health Affairs, 30, 2286–2292.