New Nursing Programs Address Severe Nursing Shortage

By Martha Coville

“I always knew I wanted to do this program,” said nursing student Bill Busk. His classmate, Peggy Dwyer said, “Once I saw the program, ‘I said, ‘Oh, that’s my route.’”

Mr Busk and Ms Dwyer are two of 15 nursing students enrolled in the Master’s Entry into Nursing (MbEIN) program at the University of Connecticut in Waterbury. UConn has run the MbEIN program at its main campus in Storrs for five years, and began offering it at the Waterbury campus this past January. The program will be expanded to include the Stamford campus in 2009.

The MbEIN program prepares students to sit for the registered nurses’ exam within one year, and awards a master’s degree in nursing after two additional years. Students who have earned their master’s in nursing are described as more desirable job candidates, and are compensated accordingly.

New Master’s And Doctoral Programs In Nursing

Regina Cusson, associate dean of professors at UConn, said that the accelerated MbEIN program fits into the university’s long-term strategy in several ways. She said that, in conjunction with a new doctoral degree in clinical nursing (DPN) to be offered shortly at UConn’s main campus, the MbEIN program is intended to stem Connecticut’s severe nursing shortage. The UConn School of Nursing she said, has been discussing solutions to the shortage since 2001.

Offering college graduates in western and southern Connecticut an opportunity to gain their RN licensure without traveling to UConn’s main campus in Storrs will quickly increase the number of nurses in the workforce. But according to Elizabeth Beaudin, director of nursing and workforce initiatives for the Connecticut Hospital Association, what Connecticut needs most is better educated, more qualified nurses.

Ms Beaudin said that in Connecticut “over 2,000 qualified applicants were unable to enter nursing programs during the years 2004 and 2005,” due, primarily, to the “lack of adequate numbers of faculty to teach them.”

Ms Cusson said that nurses who have earned their master’s degree, or who possess a clinical doctorate, may choose to specialize in a variety of fields, including education. Ms Beaudin said that the state grants funding the new programs will “encourage individuals to become faculty members in schools of nursing,” and help “educate health care professionals for the future.”

Ms Cusson said of the two new programs, “What we’re really trying to do is increase the level of leadership” within the nursing field in Connecticut.

From The Top Down

UConn has offered a doctorate of philosophy in nursing for more than ten years now. “A PhD in nursing qualifies you for research, teaching, and nursing,” she said. A DPN is a different degree altogether.

“Clinical scholarship for a clinical practitioner,” she said, “is very much about applied application. It’s knowing what’s out there, in terms of research and applying it. It’s looking at what’s in the literature and applying evidence-based practice. It’s weighing the way evidence was gathered.”

The UConn Board of Trustees, Ms Cusson said, has already approved the DPN program, which is scheduled to begin next fall. Enrollment, she said, will be limited to between 10 and 15 students, and the university is currently in the process of hiring two new associate professors to teach them. She expects the State Board of Education will approve the new doctoral program within the next several weeks.

Ms Cusson also said, “The clinical doctorate is starting as a post-master’s program. It’s for nurses who already have their advanced practitioner registered nursing license [APRN].”

The new DPN program is therefore designed for professionals with graduate school experience. “It’s specifically geared for people with busy lives,” Ms Cusson said.

UConn will become the only school in the state offering a DPN degree. The only other university currently granting the degree is the University of Massachusetts.

The graduates of the new program will be the educated and specialized nurses Ms Beaudin says Connecticut desperately needs. They will be qualified to review innovations in the practice of medicine and in the way hospitals and other health care facilities are run. In terms of “increasing the level of leadership,” they will be able to implement newer programs, to provide better care for patients in a variety of settings.

Back In Waterbury

The new master’s degree nursing programs in Waterbury and Stamford actually provide geographic opportunities to nursing students, since Storrs, previously the only UConn campus to offer the MbEIN program, is a particularly long commute from cities in western and southern Connecticut. Students enrolled in the Waterbury program are mostly recent college graduates, although Susan Furlong, the program’s coordinator, said it would also be ideal for those looking to change career fields, or for stay-at-home parents returning to the workforce.

Bill Busk, who said he had “always wanted to do this program,” said he was attracted to its flexibility. “I wanted an undergraduate degree in biology because you can do more with it.”

Peggy Dwyer, who saw the MbEIN degree offered at Waterbury as her “route” to professional advancement, said she had followed the program through its approval processes. “I head about it on the news, on TV,” she said. It was finally approved last November, and Ms Dwyer was waiting.

Teacher Sandra Barnoski is a family nurse practitioner with a specialty in medical and surgical nursing who also works at the UConn medical center in Farmington. A laidback women with long light brown hair, she said that while the MbEIN program offers tremendous opportunity for professional development within a relatively short time frame, it also requires commitment.

“We advise students not to work full-time while enrolled in the program, she said, “although many do work part-time or per diem.”

Each week, in addition to studying and reading, students attend 13 hours of class and perform 16 hours of clinical work at the Waterbury Hospital or at St Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury. “We have zero life hours,” a voice from the back of the classroom called out as Ms Barnoski described the program.

When The Bee visited Ms Barnoski’s program, she was reviewing abdominal examinations with her class. She taught them how to diagnose different strains of the hepatitis virus, and how to read blood tests results for the disease.

But Ms Barnoski also said everyday politeness must accompany clinical diligence when diagnosing a serious disease like hepatitis C. She told the class she had once had a patient who was terribly distraught when she told him his blood test had come back positive for hepatitis C.

“He kept saying that he had never engaged in activities which increase your risk of catching hep C,” she said. “He said he had never used intravenous drugs, never had unprotected sex, and that he had not had a large number of sexual partners during his life.”

“I told him there is always a chance a blood test could be a false positive,” Ms Barnoski said, “and I said we could send a blood sample to another laboratory, which would be the best way to test for that.

“But,” she told the class, “many people who have become successful in their careers, who work for large corporations, or who have families are not comfortable admitting their youthful indiscretions,” even to health care workers.

“I told him that while we could certainly do another blood test, this was an appropriate time to talk about risk factors,” she said. Intranasal drug use, she said, increases an individual’s risk of contracting hepatitis, although not to the same degree as intravenous drug use.

“If you’re snorting coke,” she said, “and passing a straw or a rolled up dollar bill around a table, you can see that the membranes in the nose would be susceptible to the disease.”

“I kept asking him about the risk factors, and he kept saying, ‘no, no, no,’” said Ms Barnoski. “So finally I asked him, you know, ‘Did you ever snort coke, even a little bit, in college maybe?’ And he said, ‘Well, yes.’ So I asked his how often, and he said, ‘Well, about every day for three years.’”

Newtown residents interested in enrolling in either nursing program can call the UConn school of nursing enrollment services at 860-486-1968, or visit its website at www.nursing.uconn.edu