The United States is a nation in need of nurses.
This shortage has Colleges of Nursing across the country scrambling to find ways to alleviate the problem before it becomes an epidemic.
The simple solution — get more undergraduate students to pursue a career in nursing — seems easy enough. But the reality is many nursing colleges are facing a shortage of their own.
“To fix the nursing shortage you have to produce more nurses, to produce more nurses you have to have more faculty,” said Margaret Wilson, Ph.D., B.S.N., associate dean for graduate programs at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing.
It’s a vicious cycle that UNMC’s College of Nursing has taken head-on, Dr. Wilson said.
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Criteria to enter B.S.N. to Ph.D. fast track program
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Last year, the College of Nursing began offering two programs that accelerate the learning process for nursing students. The goal is to get more nursing faculty and nurses where they are needed most: in the classroom and into clinical practice.
The programs address both issues, Dr. Wilson said. The accelerated B.S.N. is aimed at helping professionals who already have a bachelor’s degree to earn a bachelor of science in nursing in 12 months.
The other program is aimed at helping those nurses who want to teach earn a Ph.D. more quickly, accelerating their transition to the teaching role.
“In most academic disciplines it takes 10 years from the time a student enters undergraduate school to the time they earn a Ph.D.,” Dr. Wilson said.
That is the trajectory if the person focuses on going to school, she said. But in real life, often what happens is the student graduates with a BSN, goes to work, gets married, has children, buys a house and now has too many financial and social responsibilities and not enough time to pursue a Ph.D.
“The average age of a nurse entering the Ph.D. program is 42,” Dr. Wilson said. “And that is usually on a part-time basis, so the average age this person begins teaching is 52. That doesn’t leave much time to teach and begin a research program before the person is ready to retire.”
Which is why Dr. Wilson and her colleagues developed the Fast Track Ph.D. program.
“We need to encourage younger, capable B.S.N. students to consider a career in teaching,” she said.
Dr. Wilson said she expects to enroll the first cohort of students this fall. The students will take approximately 15 credits at the Master’s level so that they have graduate preparation in a clinical specialty. They do not receive the MSN but instead move directly on to the Ph.D. program.
While the students do not receive the MSN, Dr. Wilson said, they do take a specialty in one of the following areas: pediatrics, psychiatrics, gerontology, women’s, adult, mental or community health.
This meets the state boards of nursing requirement that nursing instructors have a nursing specialty in order to teach in basic undergraduate BSN programs, she said.
“They are not nurse practitioners,” Dr. Wilson said. “Our Ph.D. program is intended to produce beginning nurse scientists who are able to teach in basic undergraduate B.S.N. programs.”
Already the accelerated B.S.N. program has proven popular, said Catherine Todero, Ph.D., B.S.N., M.S.N., associate dean of undergraduate studies at the College of Nursing and project director for the new accelerated program.
The program, which is funded by a three-year $1.17 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Professions, is at capacity.
All 20 slots are full with hopeful nursing students working at a grinding pace to complete their degree by the end of the year.
“These students will finish in one year what the traditional nursing students learn over the course of 2 1/2 years,” Dr. Todero said.
The students in this program will spend an average of 65 hours or more a week attending classes, doing lab work, going to clinics and studying, she said.
“This program is intended to quickly address the nursing shortage,” she said. “But it also presents an opportunity for people who have a degree but can’t find a job, or who are unsatisfied with their current career choice, to switch to a rewarding career in nursing.”
Dr. Todero said that when looking at applicants for the program, the admissions committee carefully weighs their social and family obligations against the commitment a student must make in order to successfully complete the course in 12 months.
“Someone with children will need tremendous support if they are going to be attending classes five to six days a week,” she said. “Another thing to consider is their financial obligations. A student simply won’t have time to work even part-time with such a fast academic pace.”
The curriculum, Dr. Todero said, is set up so that students enrolled in the accelerated program take some of the traditional courses like pharmacology and nursing research with their peers and other nursing skills and clinical classes at an accelerated pace.
“Many traditional nursing courses are offered on Monday, Wednesday or Friday across a 15-week semester block,” Dr. Todero said. “We sandwiched our accelerated program around the traditional program and found days and times when the accelerated courses could be offered.”
The first semester of the program is broken down like this: during the first 7 1/2 weeks of the traditional 15-week program the students spend eight hours in lab or clinics on Tuesday and Thursday learning basic skills, such as how to start an I.V. or administer an injection, and to do health histories and physical assessments.
The second 7 1/2 weeks is spent in a medical-surgical class at 16 to 20 hours of lab or clinical work per week.
By the end of the 15 weeks, the accelerated nursing students will have finished seven courses compared to only four completed by the traditional students.
In this way, Dr. Todero said, the accelerated nursing students will earn their B.S.N. in one calendar year instead of the 2 1/2 academic years it usually takes.
“There are some courses that last up to nine weeks,” she said.
The grant funding used to create this program has also allowed the College of Nursing to do some creative things with course work that will impact all nursing students, Dr. Todero said.
With the extra resources the college has been able to create individual skill modules that are videotaped demonstrations by a faculty member. The collection of skill demonstrations are then burned onto a CD and can be handed out to the students as a digital procedure manual.
“The proper way to put on surgical gloves and still maintain the sterility of the gloves is one example,” Dr. Todero said. “The student can take the CD home, practice the skill over and over again and then come back and demonstrate their competency before an instructor.”
This method allows the student more flexibility and frees up class time that faculty can then devote to other things, she said.
Cognitive and affective skills training can also be accomplished this way.
Another important advantage of the funding, Dr. Todero said, is that it will allow the creation of simulations and graphics to make a lesson on something like heart failure more visual and interactive for the student, rather than just sitting in a class for hours listening to lectures.
These new technology enhanced teaching methods and accelerated degree programs are just a few examples of the creative ways the College of Nursing is meeting the growing demand for health care providers across the nation.
The College of Nursing is committed to maintaining and improving the educational quality of its programs, Dr. Todero said, while advancing the credentials of all nursing professionals and meeting the needs of the state and nation for highly educated nurses.