Alberta Hunter in her nurse uniform at Goldwater Memorial Hospital before her retirement in 1977

In 1955, blues and jazz legend Alberta Hunter decided to begin a second career as a nurse after reaching the pinnacle of a music and theater career spanning more than 4 decades.  Yet, she was turned down when she first applied to the School of Practical Nursing at the Young Women’s Christian Association branch in Harlem.   The director of the school told her that she was simply too old to become a nurse.
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As 2013 began, some experts declared that not only was the nursing shortage over but that it was a “myth” (See our February 2013 article: “Is the nursing shortage a myth?“) and a number of news outlets began reporting on just how difficult it was becoming for new nursing school graduates to find a job. However, as we enter 2014, it is clear that there is still a shortage of experienced nurses in some regions, that the demand for nurses will continue to rise and that new nurse graduates still have a much better chance of finding a job than new graduates in other fields.

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