Technology, faculty are best medicine
to address national nursing shortage
Today’s nursing students
have turned in hard copies of
The Merrick Manual of
Medical Information for a
handheld communication
devices to diagnose and treat
patients.
Such state-of-the-art technology
and skilled faculty
members are just what the
doctor ordered for nursing
programs like New Paltz’s to
treat a projected national
nursing shortage that could
reach more than a million
nurses by 2020, according to
the American Association of
Colleges of Nursing (AACN).
Advanced practice graduate
students at New Paltz are
learning to use the PDAs
(personal digital assistants),
equipped with pharmaceutical
and diagnostic software, in
clinical classroom settings. The technology was purchased
through the college’s
Student Computing Access
Program.
Nursing students Mercy Mathew (left) and Marie Laurent (right)receive advice from faculty member Deena Gill (center) on interviewing techniques for patients.
Eleanor Richards, chair of
the Nursing Department, said
that nursing instructors skilled
in the latest technology are
essential to the program.
The department is expanding
the population it reaches
with the help of technology.
As part of the recent renovation
to van den Berg Hall, the
department’s distance learning
center was equipped with
Interactive Television (ITV).
As a result, a first-year gradu-ate course is broadcasted to
students at an extension site in
Rockland County.
Undergraduate courses are
broadcasted to sites in
Middletown and Sullivan
County, and the department
anticipates offering courses in
Orange and Westchester counties.
There are plans to purchase
additional ITV equipment
to deliver courses to
area hospitals with $97,000 in
SUNY Central funds that
were procured over the summer.
Richards said that the programs
accessibility is key,
because students often are
already working full-time
jobs. They are typically students
like Sonia Dinac ’08,
who works at Good Samaritan
Hospital in Suffern.
“These students often have
full-time commitments outside
the classroom and they still
come to school and meet their
requirements,” said Richards.
There are 364 students registered
with the department
this semester, up from 309 last
year. While enrollment grows,
a contributing factor to the
national nursing shortage is a
nursing faculty vacancy. The
AACN attributes the decline
to budget constraints, retiring
faculty and increasing job
competition from clinical sites
throughout the nation.
The college has six faculty
members. Five of the six nursing
faculty members at the
college have doctorates; the
sixth will pursue a doctorate
in nursing education next fall.
Richards is aware of how fortunate
the department is to
have such trained faculty
members as Deena Gill, who
in addition to having a doctorate
in nursing education,
maintains her clinical expertise
as a certified family nurse
practitioner and certified
gerontological nurse practitioner.
“The difficulty is attracting
masters-and doctoral-prepared
faculty to nursing education,
which, in turn,
impacts the critical nursing
shortage,” said Richards.
For more information on
the Nursing Department, visit
www.newpaltz.edu/nursing. |
