LPN Programs

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) have come together to announce the creation of the RWJF New Careers in Nursing Scholarship Program. This program, of unprecedented size, will give out scholarships of $10,000 each to 1,500 entry-level nursing students over the next three years. Prefrence will be given to underrepresented minorities or students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The goal of this program is to help alleviate the nursing shortage by increasing the number of students in the accelerated nursing programs. Funding from this program will also be available to nursing schools to help them take on the increased number of students. The program aims to increase the number of applicants for accelerated nursing programs, those who have a bachelor's degree and want to do an accelerated program, but cannot get aid because they already have a degree (most federal aid is not available to those who already have a degree).

Thirteen nursing students from the John Hopkins University School of Nursing are going to be heading over to New Orleans for their spring break. They will be volunteer to help in the Lower Ninth Ward which was badly damaged in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. The students are calling themselves Team NOLA (New Orleans, LA). Though they will be mostly involved in doing residential rebuilding, they will also work with nurses to conduct screenings and lend assistance to those who still have limited access to healthcare facilities.

In the aftermath of any disaster, be it a hurricane, tsunami, or tornado, nurses are the most needed personnel. Nurses hold the whole system together by provding the care that a physician is not trained to provide. Nurses are the oil in the healing machinery. Despite the fact that Katrina happened in 2005, there are still areas of New Orleans without adequate healthcare services, and in a lot of places it is because of the lack of nurses.

Not that there is any shortage of job opportunites for nurses on land, but if the intense action of the emergency room is not enough for you, you can join the Navy. To join the Navy as a nurse you will be trained as a Navy recruit, though the training will be different.

You will not only be respected as a nurse, but also as a Navy officer. Of course, the treatments will be different than the type you would find in civilian service, but the medical instruments and technology will no doubt be top-notch. And of course, you will be able to rid yourself of the paperwork that is everpresent in a hospital or clinic. For some, that may just be worth it.

Over the past decade or so, the nursing profession has become more dynamic and widespread. Whereas, once nurses were just considered the right hand of the doctor, now they are involved in doing minor surgery themselves. Some nurses are even allowed to prescribe medicines. As the baby boomers get older there will be more responsibility that nurses will be taking on.

There are also specializations that nurses can go into, like nurse consultants, nurse specialists, and modern matrons. Consequently, there are now many options for an LPN to move into, like LPN to RN or LPN to BSN. Depending on your interests and aptitude there is now a range of interesting areas you can go into as an LPN.

At University of Wisconsin Noelle, the life-like robotic birthing doll, is used to help undergraduate and graduate nursing students practice birthing procedures. Noelle is life sized, wears a blond wig, and has bendable knees. Her chest rises and falls as she breathes and has a dialated cervix for the birthing.

Noelle can simulate various complications in birthing as well. From breech birth to bleeding or whatever the students require. The complications are not only limited to the actual birthing. For example, in one simulation Noelle complained about shortness of breath, after doing some troubleshooting it was discovered that she was lying on her chest tube which then they moved. Of course, the real thing is different, but overall it gives the students some confidence when faced with a real scenario.

The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree is currently being devised. It is not necessarily higher than an Registered Nurse of a holder of a Master of Science in Nursing degree. Though it is billed as a "doctor" degree it not of the PhD level. A DNP is done after obtaining a bachelor's degree. The problem occurs with the fact that since the DNP is a PhD level degree the nurses with DNP degrees will be introducing themselves as doctors. Though in reality they are not exactly medical degree holding doctors of the type that you think of.

A DNP holder will complete 1,000 hours of practical experience after completing a bachelor's. A physican completes far more hours on a usual basis. Furthermore, having a nurse bill herself as a doctor is going to be misleading for the patients, many of whom won't really understand the difference. Overall, I think the DNP degree is a good idea, but they may want to change the name. The DNP is being pushed by Columbia University School of Nursing.

Susan Conrad, Framingham State College professor, is addressing the nursing shortage in her town of Framingham, MA. She is did this by creating a nurse educator certificate program to help transition licensed nurses to work as nurse educators, she has also launched online courses to make training accesible to nursing candidates that have busy schedules, finally, last year she developed a two year, part-time, Master of Science in Nursing program for the Massacheusetts Board of Higher Education.

One of the reasons for the nurse shortage is that there is a lack of qualified nursing instructors. This is exactly the area that needs to be tackled in America today. Susan Conrad is an example of doing just that. Actually, the reason that many people recommend nursing candidates to take online courses even if they have the time for offline instruction is that there is a shortage of good quality nursing teachers, online though you don't get the face to face time at least the material has been made to compensate for no instructor present.

There is a rather disturbing trend coming in focus across the pond in the United Kingdom: nursing students are dropping out of nursing courses at a faster rate. In 2006 26.3 percent of nursing students that were going to finish their program left early, this was up from 24.8 percent two years earlier. In the UK this is not only bad for the nursing industry but since most of the schools there are government funded based on the number of students it becomes a monetary problem as well.

The effect on everything is enourmous. Of course, the nursing industry is suffering because of the lack of nurses. The nurses that are already in the workforce are being pushed harder to compensate for the loss. Since, in the UK the healthcare system is more welfare driven, the hours of the nurses cannot be extended too much. This causes problems for hospitals and clinics. The reason for why the students are dropping out is not really clear yet, but as the news becomes available we'll post it here.

The Canadian Unition of Public Employees (CUPE) said that Saskatchewan's nursing shortage could only be resolved by including LPNs. There seems to be a worldwide nursing shortage, in Canada, UK, Europe, Australia, and of course in America. Part of the problem is Saskatchewan has to do with the number of nurses, but that is not the whole picture. A lot of the LPNs that are working, many of them are not permitted to perform all their job duties.

In long term care facilities LPNs are employed to their potential however in acute care settings they are not as well used. The thing is that LPN programs and the skill set that LPNs are required to have has changed over the previous 10 years. With the current skill set, LPNs can be gainfully employed in most acute care settings. Though this is not the complete solution to the problem, it is definitely a step in the right direction.