An online poll, conducted by the American Nurses Association, reveals that 72% of all nurses feel that the staffing at their facility is inadequate, Modern Healthcare reports. Perhaps more alarmingly, nearly half of the 15,000 nurses responding to the survey stated that they would not feel comfortable about a friend or family member being treated in their employer's facility.

The survey also measured other factors such as job satisfaction, and quality of care, according to the article. Over half of the nurses surveyed also expressed that they were seeking a new job due to the staffing and quality issues they face.

What is the answer to this critical nursing situation? According to the Modern Healthcare piece, Congress is working on a bill that would require facilities to work with nurses to devise more suitable nurse staffing plans. However, the current bill in process is the fourth one to attempt to do so. And what good is a nurse staffing plan if there are not enough nurses available to make the plan a reality?

More on nursing careers:

• Nurse career profile
• Top 3 Nursing Careers
• Modern Healthcare article (registration required)

Medical device marketing is another great industry job for people who are interested in being involved in the medical field from behind the scenes. After a medical device is developed, tested, and approved, the medical device marketing team rolls the product out to the consumers and the public, handling every aspect of the product's market exposure. As direct-to-consumer (patient) advertising has increasingly gained popularity in the healthcare field, device marketing has become even more critical to a product's success. Device marketers must handle the product's roll-out to both the medical community (physicians, nurses, etc.), and the general patient population.

While some medical device marketers come from a marketing background, most job opportunities require a background and education in engineering, such as mechanical, bio-medical, or electrical engineering, for example. Many senior level device marketers have an MBA in addition to their engineering degree, but it often is not required for entry into the field. For more information, check out the Medical Device Marketing career profile.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the June numbers today. Regarding healthcare employment, the report states good news:

"The health care industry added 21,000 jobs over the month, in line with its average monthly gain for the first 5 months of this year, but below the average gain of 30,000 jobs per month in 2008."

Additionally, in a positive sign, the unemployment rate remained relatively stable, only ticking up a tenth of a percentage point, to 9.5 percent. While not wonderful news, at least the increase in the unemployment rate was not as significant of a jump as we have seen in recent months.

Despite the good news in healthcare, a total of 467,000 jobs were lost in other industries in the month of June. That's 467,000 reasons why I'm glad to be working in the healthcare industry.

How are physicians using Twitter, the social media internet phenomenon? What are medical doctors tweeting about? American Medical News, published by the AMA, recently reported about physicians on Twitter. While we’ve explored Twitter’s various uses for medical professionals here on About.com Health Careers, the American Medical News takes a closer look specifically from the physicians’ perspectives, regarding how they use Twitter now, and how they plan to use Twitter in the future, if at all, in relation to their medical practice.

The article finds that hospitals use Twitter for marketing purposes, but most physicians use it to build a community of other clinicians, and eventually, to connect with patients, as more healthcare consumers jump on the Twitter bandwagon. The physicians interviewed seem to agree that it’s difficult to predict what role Twitter will play in their practice, but they also agree that it most likely will maintain a role of some sort. Whether Twitter is used in marketing, public health education, or general communication amongst other physicians or with the patient population is yet to be determined.

• Twitter for Medical Professionals
• Social Media and Healthcare
• American Medical News Report