The objective of the literature review is to focus on the need of nursing profession and challenges faced by nurses in Pakistan while persuading nursing career as their profession. A systematic search of the literature is performed for the period of 1994 to 2009. The results of the literature review indicated that domain of nursing care has spread from patient care to the family centered care, community and public health nursing, education, and research. However, Pakistan being a developing country has underprivileged healthcare system and is still facing scarcity of nursing professionals contributing for nurses shortage. Factors contributing towards nursing shortage in Pakistan are low salary, lack of career development, migration, marriages, pregnancies, domestic problems, less educational opportunities, poor infrastructure of teaching and learning resources, lack of involvement in decision making at different level of healthcare system, and violence and so forth. Literature also highlights that nurses feel lack of appreciation for their work from their managers. Moreover, nursing is considered as female centered profession; professional training and job is submissive to medical practice. This difference has affected public image of nursing as low profile job. To gain respect, dignity and professionalism in nursing profession, nurses need a quality educational and professional regulatory body. This paper mainly focuses on the healthcare system of Pakistan, factors of nursing turnover, and the level of nursing education in Pakistan.