Heather Greenwall wanted to be a nurse, but struggled to pay college tuition while raising her three children and working at the U Hospital as an executive secretary.
Now thanks to a new collaborative program between the U and Salt Lake Community College that pays tuition for nursing students who work at the U Hospital for three years, Greenwall won’t have to worry about finding the money.
“It’s a great opportunity,” said Greenwall, a first-year nursing student. “It opened a lot of doors for me.”
Hospitals and other medical facilities across the nation have been feeling the crunch of the shortage of nurses available to staff units.
The U and SLCC opened this program in May to minimize the effects of this shortage.
David Chatterton, a nurse in the program, said he is also really grateful for the U’s new program.
“They’re paying for me to go to school and then they’re giving me a job when I get done,” he said.
Maureen Keefe, dean of the College of Nursing, said the nursing shortage started around the turn of the century, and people feel the cycle has not yet come to its peak.
“Nursing shortages have cycled in the past every 20 to 30 years, but this has been the most severe and sustained nursing shortage we’ve seen in the United States,” she said.
Keefe said the shortage isn’t because people don’t want to go into nursing.
“Our problem now is we don’t have enough nursing faculty so we can’t take more students at the time that we need them most,” she said.
According to statistics from the College of Nursing, only 128 of the 284 qualified nurses who applied for the program were accepted into the traditional and accelerated bachelor’s nursing programs in fall 2007. Keefe said there wasn’t room to teach all of the students who applied.
The U hopes to raise its acceptance number by 16 students in 2008, she said.
Keefe said the demand for nurses is rising so quickly that the supply has not been able to keep up.
“Hospitals are very concerned about the quality of care in patient safety,” Keefe said. “And they always make sure they have enough nurses to staff the units or open the new units when they have a new hospital wing that’s built.”
Keefe said the U Hospital and the Huntsman Cancer Hospital are searching for ways to get enough nurses for the new additions by making investments in new programs.
Joyce Barra, division chair of nursing and interim dean of the School of Health Sciences at SLCC, said the college wants to make quality nurses who not only get associate degrees but who continue their education.
“The partnership is a good one for both of us,” Barra said. “The University Hospital system benefits from this, as does the community college. I think it’s an excellent opportunity.”
Anna KartashovaDavid Chatterton, a call center supervisor, speaks with Lucy Thompson, a call center agent, at the Greenwood Health Center in Midvale. Chatterton is also a nursing student enrolled in a new U program that helps pay his tuition.