Nursing program to expand at USG

Dr. Karen Clark, interim assistant dean for the USG nursing program, said the University of Maryland undergraduate nursing program at USG has admitted a class of 63 students every fall. But beginning this year, the program will admit about 50 students for the fall semester and another 50 for the spring.

She hopes that, along with an expansion of the graduate student slots at the nursing program's home campus in Baltimore, will help alleviate the personnel pinch.

"The problem is two-fold," she said. "There's not enough nurses out there, but that's partly because there's not enough faculty to taken on increases in new students."

Although Clark and Joe Bucci, director of marketing at USG, admit the undergraduate program expansion will do little to ease the faculty shortage, they believe the need for skilled nurses is great enough on its own.

"There is a huge need for nurses," he said. "Right now the plan is to double the size of the [nursing] program [at USG] over the next five years."

Marisa Lavine, spokeswoman for Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, said a large recruiting effort is in place at the hospital.

"It's called 75 RN [registered nurses] in 100 days," she said. "The program ends at the end of this month, and we should meet that [goal] without a problem."

Most of the recruiting for the effort was done at career fairs, but hospital officials are excited about USG expanding its nursing program.

"We hired 117 new nurses in 2008 — that's twice as many as last year," she said.

The undergraduate program expansion is being funded by a $3.4 million allocation in the 2009 state budget by Gov. Martin O'Malley to the University of Maryland School of Nursing. Efforts by Dr. Janet D. Allan, dean of the school, helped convince lawmakers that investing in nursing education was a worthwhile venture.

"We are excited to be growing our enrollment in response to the need for highly-skilled and competent nurses in our community and the state," Allen said. "We are also pleased that the School of Nursing is able to increase its presence at the Universities of Shady Grove, a rich academic environment located near the expanding Baltimore-Washington, D.C., biotech corridor and several health systems where nurses are playing increasingly vital roles."

The nursing program at USG began in 2000 and has grown steadily since, Clark said. The first class was just 22 students.

She added that the nursing population is aging, as not enough new nurses are entering the profession. Still, she remains optimistic about the program and the future.

"This is the perfect place to grow," Clark added. "There's space here and there's demand here."

There is still one problem. Clark said the four faculty members currently in the program are only about half of what they'll need; they're looking to hire more nursing professors.