Lack of resources is a scenario facing the Cochran School of Nursing in Yonkers; but those resources aren”™t books and equipment. It”™s adequate space.
“We don”™t have enough space in one wing of the hospital to even handle the numbers of students we have,” said Kathleen Dirschel, vice president of education and dean of the Cochran School of Nursing at St. John”™s Riverside Hospital. “It was in the books to buy another building, but because of the budget cuts, we can”™t afford to right now”¦so our only option is to go down in size.”
Dirschel said the school typically admits up to 120 students in September and around 64 in January, but said that number will drop to about 32 come winter.
In addition to economic woes and budget cuts directly affecting health care, Dirschel said that “a lot of professors and teachers are spread thin themselves ”¦ many people actively employed as nurses are usually employed elsewhere, which does contribute to burnout.”
Dirschel herself teaches night classes at New York University, Columbia University and MercyCollege. “I like teaching, but it does make for a very hectic schedule,” she said.
Virginia Clerkin, a Mahwah, N.J., resident and registered nurse, is an instructor at DominicanCollege in Orangeburg, but balances her faculty work with clinical work at New YorkPresbyterian Hospital”™s Westchester division and Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern. “I chose to teach because I”™ve been a nurse for more than 30 years,” she said. “It”™s important to educate future nurses because of the shortage.”
“Virginia is very versatile,” said Maureen Creegan, registered nurse and director of the nursing program at Dominican College. “She performs a multitude of tasks in the clinical area, but what this ends up doing is stretching her.”
Creegan said that Dominican runs a relatively small nursing program, but that they could use seven full-time faculty members. “(U.S. Sen. Chuck) Schumer”™s office called to see if we needed funding and if there was help from the state to expand our programs, but I don”™t foresee any money to expand anything right now,” she said.
At St. Vincent”™s Medical Center in Bridgeport, Conn., a similar situation is imminent. “The biggest problem is faculty shortage,” said Dale Danowski, vice president of patient-care services. “It”™s because salaries are so low that caused people to pick one track or another or to take on clinical work at the same time they”™re teaching.”
Joanne Wolfertz, dean and vice president of St. Vincent”™s College voiced another concern for the nursing industry. “Baby boomers are beginning to move into their 60s and unfortunately, the average age of nurses is 48, so many of them are baby boomers,” she said. “It could be a double whammy for health care.”
According to a report from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, U.S. nursing schools turned away 40,285 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2007 due to an insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors and budget constraints.
Though a collective outlook on nursing may appear bleak, Wolfertz made a valid point. “With the downturn in the economy, there will be a great impact on nursing and health care in general,” she said. “But, let”™s face it, there will always be jobs in nursing because there will always be ill people. If you compound job loss and the shortage of nurses, some may see nursing and health care as viable career options,” Wolfertz said. “So, it could have its pluses.”
