STUDENT SUPPORT

Rigorous New Route to Nursing

Graduate nursing student Lauren Young '02 discusses the health problems hidden amid Addison County, Vermont's, hills and Holsteins in a strong, clear voice. She describes uninsured farmers using animal antibiotics to treat their own infections and the plight of their isolated migrant employees, who often cannot find care until minor issues turn urgent.

Her three colleagues, all students in a one-month public health nursing course, amplify on the problems — and then they explain how they've begun mobilizing some solutions. The group researched, designed, and translated a health history form that an area free clinic will soon begin using with Spanish-speaking patients, but their efforts didn't stop there.

"We got the ball rolling on something that was just a piece of paper a month ago," says Young, who began her studies at UVM in biology, then shifted to early childhood education, but never lost her intense desire to work in family health. When a new University program designed to draw experienced professionals into nursing was introduced last year, she leapt to apply.

The group's final presentation is uncommonly polished and expansive for a short summer class. Beyond producing the form, the students spent time volunteering in the clinic, completed extensive background research, arranged two health-promotion open houses to connect people in need to community resources (one at an area feed store that attracts hundreds of farmers, the other at a Spanish-language mass), and made contacts with local media and the state farm board. Other student projects involved international training, consulting with state and county government, and assisting a nonprofit clinic in Burlington.

If the class projects are a bit atypical, so are the students. There's more gray in the seminar room than one might expect, a few more wrinkles. The class ranges in age from the young twenties to the middle fifties, and all are coming to nursing after other jobs, other degrees. For most, returning to school is possible only because of the new UVM Master's Entry Program in Nursing. Previously, students like these would either have to leave the state for a comparable nursing education or earn a second baccalaureate degree or an associate degree in nursing — unattractive options for well-educated adults with advanced practice goals. MEPN is a difficult but more promising path: even students without a science background can meet nurse licensure requirements after an intense year of science and clinical coursework and, within another 30 months, earn a master's degree that qualifies them for certification as adult, family, or psychiatric nurse practitioners or clinical nurse specialists in community health.

It is a program that comes along at just the right time, with a critical shortage of nurses and nursing faculty members threatening to erode the quality of care in Vermont and throughout the nation. "A number of MEPN students have expressed interest in teaching, after gaining clinical experience," says Sarah Abrams, assistant professor of nursing and MEPN program coordinator. "Considering their educational backgrounds and goals, they are likely to be future clinical preceptors or full-time faculty at UVM or other Vermont nursing programs."

They are an accomplished group, she says, with previous careers ranging from a massage therapist to a cartographer to an accountant. "Some of them told us that, while they liked their previous jobs, there wasn't quite the right fit. They wanted to do more, to find lasting meaning and make a person-to-person contribution," Dr. Abrams says.

But dreams have a price. It's virtually impossible to work during the program's first year, which demands a more than full-time commitment. MEPN students have left jobs, juggled child care, and searched widely for financial aid. But because the program features elements of both bachelor's and master's studies, and non-UVM scholarships usually focus on one or the other, finding outside aid was difficult. So support from generous UVM donors was especially critical. Funds from the College of Nursing and Health Sciences' Remo and Donna Pizzagalli Endowed Scholarship Fund are lightening the loads of many MEPN students as they strive toward their dreams of making a difference in health. Additional gifts from Sally Jensen Hergenrader '55 and John and Carole Opel provided start-up funding for the program.

"Making the sacrifice to switch careers has been really tricky," Young says. "All of the folks who give money are so deeply appreciated by the students — they don't even know how much they help. I don't think any of us could possibly explain the difference the scholarships have made."