Why nurses stay – and why they go

I’m a baby boomer who came late to nursing after many years in educational research and administration. The outcomes of this survey don’t surprise me, I got that “yesssss!” feeling when I read the story above! I’d love to see more studies done on this – I have done research on retaining volunteers, and to some extent nursing as a “vocational occupation” where the work is more important than the remuneration, is rather similar. Most nurses I know don’t work full time and very few have fixed rosters, so I can understand why flexibility isn’t an issue – most common pattern I’ve found is the old “4 on 4 off”, which is about 80% full time.