[brian]

Tuition rebates and the hobbled economy of the past several years have helped to double enrollments at some of the region's nursing schools.

But even with classrooms stretched to the seams, affiliated hospitals continue to predict nursing shortages, along with difficulty filling an array of other positions in health care.

After several years of luring students with tuition rebates in return for work commitments, nursing schools at the University of Pittsburgh, West Penn Hospital and Mercy Hospital have doubled their enrollments, officials said.

Those schools and others now find themselves limited not by a shortage of applicants but by limits on their own capacity to train students.

"Because of the nursing shortage, we also have a nursing faculty shortage, " said Nancy Cobb, director of the West Penn Hospital School of Nursing. One result is that admission to nursing programs has become much more competitive, nursing school officials said.

Full Story: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05128/500364.stm