Lawsuit Says California Nursing Board Shouldn’t Limit Number of Nursing Students

Nurse Terry Liddell shows a student how to apply a tourniquet as St. Mary Medical Center trauma nurses lead a Combat Application Tourniquet training demonstration at California State University, Long Beach, on May 9, 2019. David McNew/Getty Images

A long-brewing debate over nursing shortages in California and their relation to nursing school enrollment caps has spilled over into the court system.

The California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) may be contributing to a severe nursing shortage by capping the number of students that nursing schools in the state can accept, a recent lawsuit asserts—while the BRN itself claims there is no nursing shortage at all.