The shortage of nurses across Florida and the nation is growing increasingly dire, and the diminishing number of nursing faculty only exacerbates that deficiency. The current average age of nurse educators as a group is approaching 57 and retirement looms for many.
Help is on the way from the Florida State University College of Nursing. It means to turn out even more nurse practitioners and nurse educators with advanced leadership skills, thanks to a recent $39,534 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Federal Nurse Traineeship program.
That grant and others recently won by the College of Nursing brings to more than $630,000 the 2006-07 monies designated specifically for its highly respected graduate programs. The Health and Human Services award will provide additional support to qualified full-time students admitted to either the Nurse Practitioner Master of Science in Nursing (M.S.N.) program or the Nurse Educator M.S.N. program.
"As we all know, the need for nurses is critical," said College of Nursing Dean Katherine Mason. "The preparation of excellent nurse practitioners at advanced leadership levels is a key part of our mission. Additional funding enables us to attract larger numbers of exceptional students to better meet the urgent demand for such professionals."
Mason describes the college’s Nurse Educator master’s program as vital in a time of nursing shortages. "It’s imperative that we prepare today’s nurses to educate our future nurses. This latest grant will help FSU expand its efforts to do just that."
Since 1950, the FSU College of Nursing—known as the School of Nursing until April 2006—has produced more than 5,000 nurses with B.S.N. (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) and M.S.N. degrees. Its B.S.N. program received national accreditation in 1958, the first in Florida to do so.