In a few short years, UC Irvine’s Program in Nursing Science has launched the area’s first baccalaureate nursing program in decades, won speedy national certification and sent its first wave of graduates to help to ease the state’s acute shortage of nurses.
The next step, as founding program director Ellen Olshansky sees it, is to begin tackling California’s other critical healthcare need — for primary care providers — with a rigorous two-year master’s program to train family nurse practitioners.
“When you look at the whole healthcare system, there’s a huge shortage of primary care doctors,” said Olshansky, chair and professor of nursing science in the College of Health Sciences. “Nurse practitioners can help fill that void.”
That’s because certified nurse practitioners are trained to diagnose and treat a wide range of health problems. Working collaboratively with physicians, nurse practitioners can prescribe medication, order and perform tests as well as counsel patients on preventing disease and promoting health.
Demand already is high for the dozen or so slots in UC Irvine’s nurse practitioner master’s degree program, which begins in September 2009. “We’re hearing from lots of people who want to go into advanced practice nursing for primary care,” Olshansky said. “In our program, they can focus on the family nurse practitioner track or the gerontology track.”
Olshansky, an expert in depression and infertility in women, came to UC Irvine in July 2007 from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Nursing, one of the top 10 nursing programs in the nation. In more than 30 years of experience as a practicing nurse, educator, researcher and administrator, she has seen the profession change and career opportunities expand dramatically.
Not only are nurses more in demand than ever in hospital and community settings, they also work side-by-side with physicians and researchers on clinical trials, run major medical centers and work to improve the quality of healthcare nationally. She pointed out that Mary Wakefield, a registered nurse with master’s and doctoral degrees in nursing, has been appointed to lead the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the federal agency that oversees programs that provide healthcare access to vulnerable populations, including the uninsured.
“Today’s nurses work in the political arena, as faculty members, as researchers who study the social determinants of health,” Olshansky said. “A nurse can be a woman or a man, a person with a varied educational background, from associate to post-doctoral degrees. What ties it all together is that in nursing, we focus on health, on promoting the health of the public.”
That sense of purpose has energized everyone in UC Irvine’s nursing program, she said. “Our faculty is great, they’re all really motivated. One of our goals is to have a Ph.D. nursing program by 2012.”
In the meantime, the 36 new bachelor’s degree nurses in UC Irvine’s inaugural class represent a down payment on improving the state’s standing as 49th in the nation in nurse-to-patient ratio. All have either landed positions or are weighing job offers.
“We’ve had a lot of support from local hospitals because of their continuing need for nurses,” Olshansky said. “People really wanted this program.”