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The global nursing shortage created opportunities for registered nurses from developing countries to seek professionally and financially rewarding careers in progressive countries like the United States. Using Maslow 's theory on the Hierarchy of Needs as the framework, this phenomenological study examined the lived experiences of eleven indigenous Filipino nurses who migrated to the United States. It looked into the meaning of the migration as the participants lived through their experience, approaching it from a humanist perspective. Ultimately, this study could be used as a guide in the development of employment and health care policies that are more responsive to the current state of the nursing profession.
INTRODUCTION
In the late 1990's, health care administrators all over the world acknowledged the shortage in the supply of registered nurses. This global phenomenon affected even the most progressive countries like the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and the United States (Aiken, Buchan, Sochalski, Nichols, and Powell, 2004). To meet the demands of their domestic needs, these countries started recruiting foreign nurses from developing countries. U.S. hospitals through nurse recruitment agencies, directly recruited from the Philippines, a well known source country for nurse migrants (Buchan, Kingma, and Lorenzo, 2005). By mid-1980s, 75% of all foreign nurses in the US nursing workforce were Filipino (Van, 2010). According to the World Health Organization (2007), the Philippines is the largest exporter of registered nurses, with about 250,000 found in more than 30 countries worldwide
Purpose of the Study
This study intended to understand the impact of the nursing shortage on the Filipinos' choice of a nursing career and what prompted them to leave their country. Using Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs as the theoretical framework, this study explored the opportunities inherent in the nursing profession and how this opportunities influenced the RNs'personal goals. It intended to answer the following research questions:
1. What prompts Filipinos to pursue a nursing career?
2. Why is the United States the preferred choice destination of Filipino nurses?
3 What does it mean for the Filipino RNs to be immigrants in the United States?
Design of the Study
Eleven participants reconstructed their lived experiences within the parameters of this phenomenological study. The goal was to obtain comprehensive descriptions of their experiences and to understand what...