Florida short on faculty to teach new nurses

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

That there is a nursing shortage nationwide is a widely accepted notion. But there's also a shortage of nursing instructors. To help address the shortage of instructors, the University of Florida's nursing school has developed a fast-track program that allows it to identify the best and brightest students and channel them directly into a PhD program.

Gainesville Sun, July 15, 2002

http://www.gainesvillesun.com/articles/2002-07-15a.shtml

[HazeK]

Our community college ran low on funding for their ADN nursing program, so the college nursing program administrators got together with the city's Directors of Nursing to discuss the problem.

The solution: Ask for volunteers from the hospital staff, who already had their BSN and enjoyed teaching, to act as clinical instructors in their specialties! The volunteers attended a week-long course in Adult Education teaching skills, to help prepare us. Then the nursing students were assigned clinical rotations by the didactic staff. The volunteers took smaller groups of clinical students (figured we couldn't handle as many to "hover over" as an experience Pro.) Our salaries were paid for BY THE HOSPITALS, as a donation to support the Nursing Program!

A very Joint Effort that worked very well!

Haze