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With the baby boom generation nearing retirement, creative solutions must be sought to attract, retain and reward professors and to inspire more nursing graduates to go on and obtain advanced degrees.

Reggie Ottem, MSN, RN, performs best when there's some variety in her life, which is why she decided to quit her job in a busy telemetry unit at Kaiser Permanente San Diego and return to the classroom-as an instructor.

She got her opportunity through the "Nurses Now" program at San Diego State University under which additional faculty are funded by a coalition of 10 hospitals and two foundations at an amount totaling $4.6 million. With each hospital supporting the equivalent of one full-time instructor, the school has been able to nearly double its undergraduate enrollment as a way to help meet the growing nursing shortage.

"To work as a mentor is very rewarding," said Ottem, who spent more than three years at Kaiser and previously was an ER nurse for Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa. "It allows me to share some of my experiences and philosophies of nursing and to have a hand in grooming future nurses."

With a major shortage of RNs predicted for the next decade, nursing schools across the country ironically turned away 5,823 qualified applicants last year mainly because of an insufficient number of faculty and limited resources, according to a survey by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. As a result, many schools are partnering with hospitals and finding other creative ways to increase or retain faculty at a time when many tenure-track professors are nearing retirement age.

Expansion programs

The Nurses Now program is in its third year and has allowed the school to go from admitting 50 students a semester to 90. So far, 210 additional students are studying nursing because of the partnership with the hospitals and two other faculty-supporting grants, said Patricia Wahl, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, director of the San Diego State School of Nursing.

"The nice thing about the program is there are no strings attached by the hospitals," Wahl said, adding that most hospitals supply instructors on a part-time basis. "None of them have said they want to get a certain percentage of the graduates. They'll probably get their share since our graduates tend to stay and work in San Diego, but they haven't made an issue of it whatsoever."

In addition to the hospitals' contributions, the California Endowment in 2001 funded a three-year grant for $302,285 for supporting recruitment and mentorship, and the California Wellness Foundation kicked in $150,000 within a three-year period to fund a 0.75 full-time equivalent nursing faculty position that started in June, translating into an additional 15 students being enrolled for the fall semester.

In the greater Houston area, the need for additional faculty was seen as a major blockade to expanding enrollment in nursing schools and a strong community effort got under way to correct the situation. As a result, 65 nurses employed by 19 different hospitals have donated 12,000 hours of teaching during the fall and spring semesters of 2001-02.

The goal is to increase the present number of 800 entry-level RN graduates annually; so far, the 13 schools have been able to expand enrollment by 163 students in the first year, with even better results expected this year.

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