“It’s an interesting notion, yet it doesn’t seem to be congruent with our experience,” said Steven Lee Johnson, president of Sinclair Community College.
Sinclair typically has 300 to 400 students enrolled in its two-year nursing program, which graduates about 150 nurses annually.
Most find work in the Dayton area, according to Gloria Goldman, Sinclair’s associate provost. “We have really good employer feedback,” she said.
By the numbers
Associate degree nurses make up 60 percent of all nursing graduates nationally, but only 16 percent go on to earn a four-year degree, according to “Educating Nurses: A Call for Radical Transformation.”
The study, published Jan. 6, found that “today’s nurses are under-educated for the demands of practice.”
“Health care is becoming more and more complex,” said Jayne Lachey Gmeiner, director of Miami Valley Hospital’s Center of Nursing Excellence. “Having that bachelor’s degree is going to help that nurse continue to be able to practice in probably a better way moving forward.”
About 52 percent of Miami Valley Hospital’s nurses have four-year educations, Gmeiner said.
The Carnegie study authored by Patricia Benner calls for change to produce nursing graduates who are better prepared to deal with profound changes in science, technology, and the nature and setting of nursing practice.
“There’s so much to know, why shouldn’t they be getting the same kind of education that we would expect for an engineer,” said Pat Martin, dean of Wright State University’s College of Nursing and Health.
Gmeiner said that Benner’s previous study, “From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice,” has served as the basis of Miami Valley’s internal career ladder for nurses for more than two decades.
The new study recommends that nursing program capacities be expanded to allow students to complete degrees in a reasonable amount of time.
It also calls for community college nursing programs to seamlessly articulate their programs at the two-year mark with an affiliated four-year nursing program to enable nurses to complete bachelor’s degrees in about 4½ years.
Colleges pitch in
Wright State’s College of Nursing has articulation programs with Sinclair, Edison and Clark State Community Colleges, allowing two-year nursing graduates to complete their bachelor’s degrees at Wright State.
Enrollment in the bachelor’s completion program increased more than 50 percent over the past year, with 79 nurses enrolling in 2009, according to Wright State officials. Most of those students are Sinclair graduates, officials said.
Kettering College of Medical Arts offers associate and bachelor’s completion nursing degrees. It has 311 students enrolled in its two-year nursing program and 50 in its online bachelor’s completion program.
Kettering College is considering a move to offer a four-year nursing degree, either done in tandem with its associate degree program or replacing it, said Beverly Cobb, the college’s director of nursing.
“We have an increasing number of employers saying they have a preference ... for baccalaureate-educated nurses, so we are wanting to make sure that we are preparing our nurses,” Cobb said.
“That doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to get jobs as associate degree nurses,” Cobb said.
In demand
Nationally the demand for nurses remains high, but nursing vacancy rates in the Dayton area have been low in recent years because of the region’s economy.
New nurses must complete a “pretty intense” orientation before practicing at Miami Valley, regardless of whether they hold a two- or four-year degree.
“We have an orientation program that is designed to help the new graduate be more successful because we have recognized that they are not ready to practice right when they get out of school,” Gmeiner said.
Two-year college programs allow students with family or job responsibilities to attend part-time to pursue nursing careers.
Sinclair’s nursing department has a dual-enrollment program with Wright State that allows selected students to enroll in two Wright State nursing courses during each of the two summers that they are in the Sinclair program, “so they’ve got a leg up when they finish,” Martin said.
Miami Valley Hospital has several programs to help nurses achieve their bachelor’s degree, including tuition reimbursement and an on-site bachelor’s completion program in collaboration with Wright State.
“We have encouraged bachelor’s attainment for the last 25 years,” Gmeiner said.
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