The School of Nursing and Health Professions was awarded $307,800 through a workforce grant from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education’s (CPE) Healthcare Workforce Collaborative.

The workforce grant will provide the University with additional funds for expanding programs offered to nursing students that focus more on frontline healthcare training. CPE’s Healthcare Workforce Collaborative distributed $8 million in grants to Kentucky public colleges and universities to address the regional, statewide and national healthcare worker shortage.

Dina Byers, dean of Nursing and Health Professions, said this partnership will give students the opportunity to learn important skills and have more support from faculty. 

“We will have one of our RN faculty members work with the students and the staff there at MCCH, so the students will work directly with the registered nurse who works at the hospital during their clinical experiences,” Byers said. “Students will have more one-on-one access to the registered nurse and be able to provide care to a greater number of patients.”

Funding for this grant came from a Kentucky General Assembly appropriation fund, which is a certain amount of money allocated for specified purposes.  

This grant will allow the School of Nursing and Health Professions to fund a partnership with the Murray Calloway County Hospital (MCCH) to create a dedicated education unit for nursing students. 

Dana Todd, undergraduate nursing program director, said the clinical experience allows nursing students to put what they have learned into practice. 

“Through clinical experiences, students have the opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and provide direct patient care under the supervision of clinical faculty,” Todd said. “Students are expected to prepare for clinical experiences with those objectives in mind and then are expected to provide patient care in a professional, safe manner while collaborating with clinical faculty and other healthcare professionals.” 

The Dedicated Education Units (DEU) will begin in spring 2023. These units will focus on adult health and medical surgical nursing. 

Byers said in the future, she hopes to offer more DEU options to students to strengthen the support given to students and clinical partners. 

Nursing instructor Neely Chandler will be supervising students’ clinical work and working as the lead faculty member of this program. 

The relationship between students, faculty and the registered nurses at MCCH will be a collaborative effort. 

Jake Hicks, a junior nursing major, said this partnership will allow for more meaningful interactions with registered nurses. 

“To me, it would be like each student having a mentor, in the sense that we are always at access to a person who can show us a realistic idea of what our future careers can look like,” Hicks said. “I am so excited to have this new unit be introduced into our curriculum because it gives us better expectations of what we have to look forward to in the future.”

Todd is hopeful this partnership will provide students with an enhanced development into the professional field. 

“This experience will provide students with a more ‘real world’ clinical experience, as a few students will rotate through the role of a charge nurse and staff nurse,” Todd said. “This is a unique clinical experience to assist students as they transition into practice.”

Keeli McKeel, a junior nursing major, said this partnership will prepare students and help them understand what working as a registered nurse entails. 

“I believe having a one-on-one experience with an RN will make me more confident in my nursing practice,” McKeel said. “Some registered nurses are willing to reach out and help students while others might not be as willing. In my experience, working with RNs that enjoy helping students provides students with a more positive outlook on nursing as a career.” 

Hicks said this partnership will provide him and other nursing students with more support when starting their clinicals. 

“My first clinical, I was placed on the med-surgical floor and given a patient–I had so many questions and did not know where to start,” Hicks said. “The hospital is such a different setting than the classroom. Having a nurse would have definitely made that transition experience more comfortable.” 

The grant will also provide 30 students, who have already received their associate’s degree in nursing, a tuition waiver of $5,000 per semester. 

Students can complete an application, and recipients will be selected if they have a GPA of at least 2.5 for admission into the RN-BSN program. 

Todd said the grant has been fundamental in developing a unique clinical experience and is hopeful it will allow for similar clinical experiences on other MCCH units in the future.

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