Making healthy connections: introducing nursing as a career choice to middle school students.

The current economic climate has resulted in many experienced nurses returning to the workforce. Despite this, the nursing shortage is looming in our future and the recruitment of a diverse nursing workforce reflective of the population remains a high priority. The Merrimack Valley in northeastern Massachusetts has two large cities, Lawrence and Lowell, in which the Hispanic and the Southeast Asian populations are disproportionately higher than state and national levels.