abstract: Back to school: incoming president of the Emergency Nurses Association in the United States Nancy Bonalumi urged emergency nurses to consider taking up teaching roles in a bid to build healthcare capacity. She warned that, in the US, demographic trends suggest that the number of nurses will be '29 per cent below requirements by 2020' and that healthcare systems should no longer rely on nurses trained overseas: 'We need to be growing our own. My plea is, if you are thinking about becoming a professor, we need you'.