Call of Duty Endowment finds critical healthcare vacancies should be filled – by veterans

When you hear about veteran and spouse employment issues, you often hear about veterans lacking avenues through which to translate their extensive training, or spouses not being able to transfer nursing or teaching licenses and credentials from state to state. However, we can bet you haven’t heard about an issue plaguing our healthcare system and thousands of trained service members wanting to enter it. 

Last week, The Call of Duty Endowment, a non-profit organization helping veterans find high-quality careers, announced the release of its White Paper, “Veterans Stand Ready to Fill Critical Healthcare Vacancies.”  The paper lays the foundation for the study by reminding us of the damage our health care system has faced since the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Between the stress, anxiety, fear and exhaustion we are facing shortages for EMTs, Paramedics and Nurses. According to the 2021 American Nursing Shortage study, 1.2 million nurses will be needed by 2030 to address the current shortage. 

The White Paper shines a light on a critical issue, not only for our service members but for our country. Dan Goldenberg, CAPT. USN (RET), Executive Director of The Call of Duty Endowment shared in Forbes Magazine, earlier this year, his concern for military medics during the pandemic was that they might simply be “underleveraged talent” during what everyone knew was a difficult time. The Endowment discovered it was far more of a problem than an underleveraged and underemployed population, but one of a convoluted and confusing system where service members have unclear pathways to getting those jobs or are completely blocked from the system without starting over their training entirely. 

Twenty-eight states and territories have little-to-no pathway toward license completion. Twenty-two states have pathways, but the Endowment discovered the pathways weren’t clear and the states lacked communication to really connect with the service members in their areas to fully take advantage of their experience. Following an eight-part research plan, the Endowment worked with military leaders and state and local Emergency services to get to the root of the issue. Six states - Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri and North Carolina -  stand out as examples to the rest of the country.

The Endowment has set out on a mission, with these states as examples, to lay out a clear and precise plan to bring the other states and territories. “The fact that tens of thousands of medically trained professionals are blocked from continuing their service in healthcare during a pandemic is a serious societal shortcoming that can easily be resolved.” {Call of Duty Endowment White Paper, 2021}

For more information on what you can do to make changes in your state, read the White Paper and visit the Call of Duty Endowment website – http://www.callofdutyendowment.org/medics