Continued from Page 1

The Massachusetts Board of Registration in Nursing added a waiver option to its requirement that nursing faculty be master’s prepared, saying that schools could hire bachelor’s-prepared clinical faculty, with certain restrictions. Some other states are contemplating similar measures, according to Bednash.

While the move has made it easier to hire faculty in the state, proponents say the decision is shortsighted and doesn’t address the real problem of encouraging more nurses to earn masters and doctorates in nursing.

It’s ironic, Bednash says, that nursing is lowering its standards for educators when health care and the roles of nurses are becoming more complex.

Dwindling clinical sites

Access to facilities where nursing school faculty can take students for clinical training is limiting the nation’s schools from being able to expand programs.

“It’s not just schools of nursing wanting access, it’s medical schools, laboratory technician schools — all kinds of other health professions’ entities trying to get access,” says Bednash.

With so many large health care institutions in Boston, Hoffart says securing hospital clinical sites is not as worrisome as the challenge she faces finding community agencies. The agencies, she says, are trying to deal with their own nurse staffing shortages by stretching their staffs too far, and many are unable to take on the extra burden of students.

Associate degree programs are facing a similar plight. According to Patricia Brien, RN, MSN, MEd, department chair of the associate degree nursing program, Berkshire Community College, Pittsfield, Mass., in 2004, Berkshire’s class of 48 students filled up months earlier than it used to. And the waiting list for students to enter the nursing program is long. Brien says the program can’t expand — not only because of the faculty shortage, but also because there aren’t enough clinical sites in the rural area. “Once hospitals downsize,” she says, “clinical sites are harder to come by.”

Solutions

Some schools are looking to the private sector to help expand programs.

Florida Atlantic University landed a two-year grant from a health care corporation that’s sponsoring its accelerated baccalaureate program. That alone increased the school’s potential for enrollment by more than 20 students, to a total of 80.

“I think there are wonderful opportunities for health care systems to link with colleges and universities and to work together to help this production of nurses,” Boykin says.

Private and public money targeted at funding simulation technology could ease the burden on clinical sites, Hoffart says.

Another solution, Boykin says, is for states and the federal government to pump more money into nursing scholarships so students can go to school full time to earn higher degrees. “When I went for my master’s — a hundred years ago — there was a shortage, and the federal government had a program where they not only paid my tuition, but also paid me a stipend to be able to go to school full time,” Boykin says.

Need for policy change

Bednash says policy-makers are misdirected if they think funding should go to community colleges because they graduate students faster. Rather, she says, baccalaureate programs need money to grow.

“We know that only about 16% of [people who graduate from community colleges] go on for additional education,” Bednash says. Investing in those programs may produce the bedside nurses of today, but it shortchanges nursing schools that will need faculty in the future.

Community college grads “are not the people who are going on and getting additional education to become faculty,” she says. “Policy-makers are also under the impression that community college programs are faster — and they’re really not that much faster. We have programs for people with degrees from other fields, and they can graduate with baccalaureate degrees in nursing in a year to 15 months.”

Something’s gotta give

Nothing less than the future is at stake, Bednash says.

“The future of our nursing workforce depends on having a larger number of highly educated clinicians who can give care and who can teach about giving care,” she says. “This country needs to make some fundamental policy decisions, or we will not be able to meet the need for well-trained professionals for the future.”

To comment on this story, send e-mail to editorsc@nurseweek.com.