Lacking faculty, Washington nursing students turned away

2banurse · Dec 9, 2002

Very interesting article, NRSKarenRN. It is actually my ultimate goal to be an instructor as a nurse but that is about 5 or 6 years down the line.

srose · Dec 9, 2002

As a student in Seattle, I can attest to the truth in this article!! It says everything my friends and I have saying for the past year. I finally got into school for this winter, but by the skin of my teeth, and I think was very lucky.

Rose

Stargazer · Dec 9, 2002

Hmmm--maybe it's time to start looking at Master's programs again....

oramar · Dec 9, 2002

This is going on in a lot of regions but I don't think it is a problem in Pa.

llg, PhD, RN · Dec 9, 2002

I am my hospital's liaison with the local schools of nurisng and am one of those nurses with a graduate degree who is working in a hospital rather than a university. I was happy to read that the reporter got it right -- in terms of some of the reasons that qualified people choose not to become nursing faculty -- also that hospitals could take more students if the schools would not all insist on sending their students at the same time. In my area, everyone wants to send their students on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. We could take a lot more students if they would consider weekends, afternoons, evenings, Mondays, and Fridays.

llg

SmilingBluEyes · Dec 9, 2002

I need to hurry on up and finish up my degree and go for it...i want to be an instructor, at least on a part-time basis, sometime anyhow. i would be glad to capitalize on this shortage, like any other.

eak16 · Dec 9, 2002

as a University of Washington Student, I have wondered the same things that this article addressed for a long time. Competition is INTENSE to get into nursing school around here, especially UW. I know people with medical experience and good GPA's who have applied two and three years in a row before finally giving up. Even though UW is currently ranked as the top school of nursing in the country, my clinical instructor this quarter told us straight out that she was only teaching us because she had a few months to spare between nurse practitioner jobs.

Furthermore, the UW school of nursing applied for a federal grant last year to add 19 more BSN slots,(bringing the total to to 99 per year) and was rejected. If the government is serious aobut the nursing shortage, I think the solution is not to "raise nursing awareness" but to raise nursing proffessors salaries.

eak16 · Dec 9, 2002

PS

llg: my clinicals are currently evenings, and some other sections are weekends, so your idea is gaining momentum, at least here in Seattle

Stargazer · Dec 9, 2002

eak, I interviewed with the Dean of Nursing at UW when I was in high school. She told me then that they generally had several hundred people applying for 90 positions in the school and they wouldn't even look at students with less than a 4.0. I didn't even bother applying. My first roommie at Seattle U had gone through Freshman year at UW, applied for the nursing program at the end of freshman year, and couldn't get it. It's been that way for a looooong time.

And you're right, money seems to be a big isue for them. About 5 years ago I called the School of Nursing because I knew they had been planning to implement a Nurse Anesthetist program. The person I talked to said regretfully that it was still on their "wish list", but had been cut for budgetary reasons. As far as I know, they still don't have one.

RN2B2005 · Dec 9, 2002

I was just rejected for the Shoreline Community College program for Winter 2003...sort of a downer, but my application wasn't exactly stellar.

I'm not even sure I want to go there now; I went to one of their "information sessions" and it had to be one of the most useless and poorly planned information sessions I've ever attended. The program director stood at the front of the tiny, crowded (people standing in the hall outside) room and--I'm not kidding--read directly out of the Nursing Student handbook. This was after she spent 15 minutes telling all of us how being an ADN wasn't really good enough and how hard being a nurse is and by the way, we should really go to medical school. She also made a point of mentioning that there were only 9 nursing instructors and the difficulty of getting an advising appointment. She seemed very bitter and unhappy about nursing in general, and although Shoreline has a nice program, I'm not sure about reapplying for Spring.

My husband, who has a graduate degree in education and thus has seen many professors of education who couldn't survive one day in a real classroom, said she had "degree envy". She introduced herself as "Dr. So-and-so" because of her Ph.D.

Until the funding for truly dedicated, well-paid nursing instructors is made available at both the state and federal level, there will be a nursing shortage. I don't blame nurses who have graduate degrees for working in clinical practise instead of teaching...that's where the money is.

There's no shortage of potential nursing students--there must have been 200 people at this "information session", most of whom appeared to be older students--just a shortage of classroom seats.

Stargazer · Dec 9, 2002

That's a shame, Jennifer--I remember the Shoreline students who were assigned to our ICU were usually among the sharpest students I worked with. Perhaps the program's changed, but for soemone looking for an ADN program, 7 or 8 years ago Shoreline would've been my first recommendation.

Isn't Seattle Central supposed to have a decent program?