There aren’t enough nurses to meet demand in America’s hospitals. Health care professionals cite burnout and stress as one reason nurses are leaving the profession.
In Lane County, a coalition of groups focused on changing the national trend started a bachelor’s and master’s degree nursing program this month in Eugene.
“They’re trying to change what they believe to be a broken health care system,” said Mary Carpenter, the OHSU nursing instructor for the Lane County program.
OHSU has teamed with Sacred Heart Medical Center, McKenzie-Willamette, the University and the Steering Committee for the Healing Arts to work together on this program. The new program joins the four other OHSU nursing school programs, located in Portland, and satellite locations in Ashland, Klamath Falls and La Grande.
“There is a national shortage,” said Catherine Salveson, the Oregon Health Sciences University director who oversees nursing outreach at campuses across the state.
Some nurses said the strict cost-control-driven atmosphere of health care today has contributed to the current situation, where they say the humanity of care giving is separated from the science of medicine.
“We need to balance the strengths of both sides,” said Hannah Thomassen, who coordinates the nursing staff for McKenzie-Willamette Hospital in Springfield.
Students in the nursing program will learn about the links between spirituality, health and homeopathic and naturopathic medicine. Their classes are a combination of attending the Acorn series, online work and classroom instruction, Salveson said.
“It’s taking a more integrated approach than western medicine has taken,” Carpenter said.
The Steering Committee is in charge of the Acorn Series, which focuses on how nurses can make health care more humane.
“We are working to bring science and humanities together into medicine,” said Robin Jaqua, a psychiatrist and member of the Steering Committee. “Many nurses are avoiding the profession because of burnout and stress. This is a national crisis.”
Jaqua and her husband, John, donated $170,000 to OHSU to fund the nursing degree program in Lane County. Barbara Peschiera, the director of development for the OHSU Foundation, said the gift is the largest amount the School of Nursing has ever received.
“It’s major, and funds the entire program for three years,” she said.
The Steering Committee’s work emphasizes adding nontraditional elements to the caregiver’s role.
“It provides nurses the support to practice by giving them more tools to really be with patients the way they used to be,” said Netti Garner, a committee member, who works with women’s services at McKenzie-Willamette. “It’s so much more than giving medicine and taking vital signs.”
Twenty-seven students are enrolled for the new bachelor’s degree program and nine for the master’s program in Lane County. While the Acorn series has been designed for the nursing program, the monthly lectures are open to the public and held at the Knight Law School.