WOKV's Roxy Tyler works to answer those questions in her 3 part series on Jacksonville's Morning News.

It's an in-depth look at how the state of the economy has changed the nursing shortage in Northeast Florida and possibly the future of your health care.

The Recession is having a unique effect on the nursing industry. "Elective surgeries aren't as plentiful as they used to be so that impacts our bottom line and our ability to serve more people", says Debra Hernke, Chief Nursing Officer at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.

The tight economy means fewer people are seeking health care unless it's an emergency. In fact many local hospitals are eliminating positions or reducing the number of nurses they hire due to the lull in business. Hernke says many hospitals are having to do "expense management" as they work to fill patient and staffing needs. That means cutting hours and reducing the number of newly hired nurses.

But the recession is also creating a new twist for the nursing profession, as many current nurses are putting off retirement, fearing they'll need to work longer to take care of themselves and their family. That's leaving fewer nursing jobs available for new graduates. "This current recession is causing a bit of a remission in our nursing shortage, but it's really still there", says Debra Hernke of Mayo.

Mary Lou Brunell is Executive Director of the Florida Center for Nursing. She says the state of the economy has created a unique situation for the health care industry and especially nurses. "The stress on the nurses in the work setting increases by virtue of either not having adequate numbers of staffing or by having a lot of new inexperienced staff," Brunell says in Florida last year, more than 12,000 qualified applicants were turned away from nursing schools across the state because of a lack of nursing instructors to teach the classes.

The University of North Florida is known for having one of the best nursing schools in the country. Dr. Lee Loriz is the Director of the Nursing Program at UNF. "We are just going to have to be creative when it comes to getting these new graduates employed", says Loriz who predicts the nursing shortage will be back in about two years. She says, "We're in a predicament in which we have to be really careful that we don't lose these new nurses that graduate and then if they can't find jobs they'll want to go somewhere else, so they're either going to leave the area, which is not good, or they're going to go into a different career which is not good either."

Diane Lassiter is a newly certified registered nurse who's been on the job at Mayo Clinic for about 4 months. " I've always wanted to be a nurse because I guess I just like people and I guess It's just a chance to make a difference and help", says Lassiter. She now works on the oncology floor at Mayo and admits that sometimes it can be sad but she says most of the time the patients give you back so much. Lassiter adds "We all must realize that we could be there someday, because we're all terminal."

While the demand for nurses in hospitals is down a bit for now, there's a new need for more nursing teachers at colleges around the state.

"One of the reasons Nursing is such an exciting field to be in is that we follow, in a way, the medical model so as more research reveals new and exciting things in the field of nursing, we get to be a part of that and learn and grow", said Ann Hudgens, Clinical Education Coordinator, Mayo Clinic Jacksonville.

Hudgens says they don't have a nursing school at Mayo Clinic but they do host all of the area colleges, all the nursing schools for their clinical rotation. In fact more than 300 nursing students do their clinical training at Mayo Clinic every year in Jacksonville.

Wendy Flesh is one of the dozens of students doing clinical training at Mayo Clinic right now. She was going to study to become a Dentist when her mother was diagnosed with cancer and received treatment at Mayo.

Flesh says that's when she decided to become a nurse. "When we graduate we will be an RN and we'll take the state licensing board to be certified, following that I'm trying very hard to get into ICU (Intensive Care Unit) because I want to go on and get my Masters.

Now I definitely have a reason that's more close to my heart, once you in school and work with the patients, you have an alteration in your personality that goes on when you go in and see people that desperately need you to be compassionate and caring, it really changes your thinking", said Flesh.

Many college students choose Nursing as a career for more than one reason. "New RN's are going out and earning 60 thousand a year", says Mary Lou Brunell, Executive Director of the Florida Center for Nursing. But says last year more than 12 thousand nursing students were turned away from schools across the state due to a lack of Nursing Instructors.

At UNF alone, more than 400 students applied to the nursing program, but there's only space for 72 students because of a shortage of nursing teachers. Brunell says with the average age of a nurse in Florida now 47, many nurses will be retiring sooner than later, and you could see quality of care compromised.

That's also the same time period when the baby boomers hit retirement age, creating an even bigger need for nurses and health care.