287,000 nurses walked out last year.

They keep calling it a nursing shortage. It is not a shortage. There are over 5.6 million active RN licenses in the United States right now. More than at any point in history.

What is happening is a hemorrhage.

In 2024 alone, 287,300 staff RNs walked away from hospital positions. Hospitals had to hire nearly 100,000 more nurses than they lost just to keep the lights on. One in three new nurses leaves within the first year. Forty percent of all RNs intend to leave within five years.

This is not a staffing shortage. This is a system that made it dangerous for nurses to stay, and then blamed them for leaving.

Dr. Lorre Laws is a nurse neuroscientist, trauma researcher, and author of Nursing Our Healer's Heart. This episode breaks down the data, the hemorrhage, and what the system does not want you to connect.

🔗 RESOURCES MENTIONED:

👉 Free Resource Vault (nervous system regulation tools, MicroDoses Matter practice, 5-4-3-2-1 practice, box breathing, and more): https://drlorrelaws.com/vault

📕 Book: Nursing Our Healer's Heart - A Recovery Guide for Nurse Trauma & Burnout https://drlorrelaws.com/book/

📧 Contact Dr. Lorre directly: [email protected]

👉 Subscribe to Dr. Lorre's newsletter: https://drlorrelaws.com

Weekly insights on the nurse health crisis, nervous system science, and evidence-based healing for nurses. No toxic positivity. No blame-the-nurse coping strategies. Just truth.

🔍 TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 – Intro: The nurse who went back to bartending

1:34 – The manufactured nursing shortage myth

2:44 – The new grad bleed: why nurses leave in year one

3:20 – The 34% first-year turnover rate

4:39 – The experienced nurse exodus

7:17 – The broken middle: nurses with 3–7 years

8:32 – The real cost of nurse turnover

9:40 – This is not a shortage — it's a system failure