MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The nursing shortage brewed around the United States even before the COVID pandemic, with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing reporting just over a 5% enrollment increase in 2019.
Looking back, that seemed good at the time, but with COVID-19, the increase just hasn’t been enough.
Nurses began leaving the workforce just as the number of patients increased, so Christian Brothers University created a nursing program aiming to combat this specific decline.
Jennifer Hitt, Director of Christian Brothers University Nursing Program and a registered nurse, came onto the staff in 2017 with a goal of addressing healthcare needs in the Memphis community.
“When we looked around and looked at what the needs were in the community, we really decided that what Memphis needed was more registered nurses,” Hitt said.
So CBU hit the ground running, beginning their Bachelor of Science in nursing program in 2020 – at the peak of the pandemic.
“We just graduated our first cohort in May, so we’re really proud of that cohort and we continue to accept new students,” Hitt said.
Initially most students in the program were transfer students, but now there is a mix of four-year CBU students and transfer students.
With one-on-one nurse-to-student ratios and hands-on experience, CBU is working to put their students on the fast-track to understand the world of nursing.
Though the program came to the school just two years ago, a unique CBU senior who got started at the school as a freshman, will be able to graduate from the nursing program this school year.
“I was a freshman when I came here and I actually had transferred to another college, then transferred back,” Hunter Byers said. “I wanted to pursue a health science major and I chose to go elsewhere, but I found that CBU was a much better place, so I chose to come back.”
The university is preparing students for the future.
“I will leave here with the knowledge that I needed to be able to take the NCLEX – which is where I get my licensure to practice nursing,” Byers said.
CBU is also funneling students directly into the Memphis healthcare system.
“Majority of our recent graduates have stayed here in the Memphis area,” Hitt said. “They’ve taken positions in a variety of different areas from ICU to medical surgical units. They really can be found in every area of the hospital.”
The Christian Brothers University nursing program accepts students from within the university as well as transfer students as they look to expand their student numbers and programs within nursing.