Training future caregivers

VCU’s new nursing education building helps make dent in national shortage

The nation will need an additional 1.2 million registered nurses by 2014, reports the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Driving this national nursing shortage, according to experts, is a lack of nursing educators and insufficient classroom space, not a lack of student interest.

With the April grand opening of a new School of Nursing education building, VCU is doing its part to help combat the problem. The facility allows for greater student enrollment as well as encourages more nurses to become faculty. VCU President Eugene P. Trani, Ph.D., says the building is vital.

“The increased space and state-of-the-science facilities give the School of Nursing an improved ability to be a part of the solution to the nursing shortage by educating more nurses who will enter the work force as competent health care professionals,” Dr. Trani said at the grand-opening event. “And as a top-ranked nursing school in the country for graduate programs and research, the school’s critical role in producing more nurse educators also will be enhanced.”

The four-story building cost $17 million — $14 million in state and university funding and $3 million in private gifts. James C. Roberts, co-chair of the Campaign for VCU, and Dr. Percy Wootton, chair of the VCU School of Nursing Advancement Council, spearheaded the effort to raise awareness of the need for the facility and to raise funds.

The facility features a clinical learning center where students can learn to provide care on high-tech patient simulators. The building also provides a 150-seat auditorium, research laboratories and a community outreach nursing center.

The facility replaces the old Cabaniss Hall, which was most recently known as the Nursing Education Building. It had housed the nursing school for almost 80 years.

Nursing Dean Nancy F. Langston, R.N., Ph.D., FAAN, says the building’s new features have helped the school, currently ranked 27th in the country for National Institutes of Health-funded nursing research, to grow by providing students with a learning environment that simulates an authentic hospital setting.

“Our clinical learning center will facilitate our moving forward in interdisciplinary education by providing a venue where our students can engage in simulated care situations before having to work together in the complex environment of the hospital,” Langston said.

She also says the program’s new facility will give greater numbers of qualified nursing instructors the space to teach more students efficiently and creatively, which is paramount to curbing the nursing shortage.

“The faculty of the School of Nursing has been very responsive to the community’s need for new nurses by increasing the enrollment in programs that lead to the graduation of new nurses,” Langston said. “Every aspect of the school is on an upward trajectory — whether it is our enrollment, our research, our alumni and friend support of the school or our national reputation.”

Nurse practitioner Allison A. Gregory, (B.S. ’98; M.S. ’00) works at the Fan Free Clinic and is an adjunct faculty member in Maternal Child Nursing at VCU. She says finding nurses willing to teach has been problematic for schools.

“As a nurse, I know there is a high burnout rate in nursing, making it hard to keep good employees in the work force where they are needed and keeping potentially good nursing educators from spending the time and energy to consider teaching,” Gregory said.

With VCU’s enrollment growth in its master’s and Ph.D. programs, Gregory said, the university is encouraging more nurses to pursue teaching.

Mary-Colleen Millage, 25, is one nursing student benefiting from the program’s growth. Millage, who is enrolled in the School of Nursing’s accelerated master’s program, said the building does more for students than provide them with new facilities — it unifies the School of Nursing.

“I think having everyone in one building brings more connection among people in all different programs,” Millage said.

Langston is also excited about where the school is headed.

“For the first time, we have a facility that lives up to the quality and caliber of the people who represent the VCU School of Nursing’s proud heritage and its bright future,” she said.