By 2035, Florida is expected to have a nursing shortage of nearly 60,000, according to the Florida Hospital Association.
The University of South Florida St. Petersburg is launching a four-year nursing program that will welcome freshmen.
Usha Menon, the dean of the USF College of Nursing, said it will help alleviate the staffing shortage in Florida.
The program is expected to accept 85 students. However, there are only 70 seats for the higher-level courses, meaning there will be a cutoff after the second year, according to Menon.
She said that's because of faculty challenges.
“The challenge we have in nursing is that we also have a nurse faculty shortage,” Menon said. “And per our accreditation guidelines, we have to have a certain ratio of faculty to students in the clinical setting. So if I bring in an extra student, I have to have almost a half-time person hired.”
USF St. Petersburg began offering an accelerated second-degree pathway in 2019 for students looking to make a career change.
The program is only four semesters long, but Menon said that about 94% to 97% of those students have passed the nursing licensure exam in the past five years.
“Ours is a very competitive program, which means we're bringing in really the best of the best students,” she said.
USF has a close relationship with St. Petersburg hospitals, meaning students have opportunities for mentorships, internships and clinical training.
“Given the physical location of our campus, right here in the hospital district, we’re very keen to knit our campus together with Orlando Health, with Johns Hopkins All Children’s and other local hospitals,” said vice provost for academic affairs Thomas Smith.
Menon said the idea for a four-year program started after university officials spoke with people at local hospitals about how they can get students to stay in the area and fill the need for nurses.
“We have multiple hospital partners in the St. Pete area who have been staunch supporters for us,” Menon said. “They give our students scholarships. They give us many clinical placements, hire our students. And so after talking to them, we identified this as a gap, maybe bringing the students in early and bringing them in as a four-year student, where they have a chance to get to know the community, they have a chance to get to know the campus, and they're really kind of committed to staying in that area.”
Students will be taking classes across the St. Petersburg campus, including the Children’s Research Institute, known as “The Band-Aid building” due to the art installation on the side of a building.
“It's a lot of fun because they get to try out all these things with mannequins before they actually go touch humans,” Menon said. “And we have some real state-of-the-art equipment with virtual reality and mannequins that will follow you with their eyes and respond.”
