JUST TWO YEARS ago the reasons for the shortage of graduate nurses, particularly for bedside hospital nursing care, were discussed in an editorial in theArchives( 81 :223, 1965). The shortage continues, and with Medicare upon us, grows worse. Why is this so, and cannot something be done about it? The Nov 10 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and the AMA News for Nov 28 consider the relation of nursing education to the ever-increasing dearth of nurses for hospital work. The Public Health Surgeon General states that 80,000 additional nurses and 40,000 additional practical nurses are needed, and to meet this need, even before Medicare, 3,000 additional nurses per year were estimated as necessary to be added to those now being graduated. However, Dr. Thomas Hale ( New Eng J Med 275 :1044, 1966) of the Albany Medical Center Hospital points out that between 1958 to 1964 the