GREENSBORO (July 3, 2024) – It took three years, but we’re finally seeing progress to produce more nurses in North Carolina.
Our Nursing Education series in 2021 pointed out that the primary bottleneck in North Carolina’s nursing shortage is a shortage of instructors – due to the simple financial arithmetic that they can make more being a nurse than they can teaching people to nurse.
It’s that simple – and it’s not hard to figure out.
SO IT WAS GRATIFYING to see UNC Greensboro win $2.4 million last week to enroll more nursing students as part of a state effort to expand nursing degree completion by 50%.
In May, UNCG’s School of Nursing graduated 241 undergraduate and 74 graduate nursing students.
“We welcome, and appreciate, the opportunity to educate more nurses to meet the needs of North Carolina,” said UNCG Chancellor Frank Gilliam.
“Our School of Nursing has long been ranked as a leader in the state and nationally, and this investment in our faculty, clinical partnerships, and facilities will further enhance the student experience as we prepare the next generation of nurses.”
Over the next two years, UNCG plans to expand enrollment in its Bachelor of Science in Nursing program by more than 50%. A new Master of Science in Nursing program should add another 70 students, starting in January.
School of Nursing Dean Debra Barksdale said the new funds should help the school hire and retain 18 nursing faculty, as well as academic advisors and other support staff.1
NORTH CAROLINA’S nursing shortage – and the shortage of instructors – are not new. In fact, they are decades old, as our series revealed.
Gilliam noted that UNCG highlighted the state’s stark nursing shortage at least since 2015, during the campaign for the Connect NC bonds that provided $105 million for UNCG’s new Nursing & Instructional Building.
We finally started to appreciate nurses – and their profound courage – during the Covid pandemic of 2020-21. They held patients’ hands as they died – or held up a phone or tablet for loved ones to say goodbye.
But the time to address such a shortage is not in the middle of a pandemic.
It’s before it happens.
And that would take foresight.
1 https://www.uncg.edu/featured/uncg-school-of-nursing-receives-2-4-million-award/.
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