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What challenges await the profession of nursing into the third millennium?
The answer, in a word - many.
Among them: a nursing shortage - one that is growing on both coasts and affecting the Hoosier state as well, particularly in the areas of operating room, emergency room and critical care nursing, according to Angela Barron McBride, dean of the Indiana University School of Nursing (IUSON). And the twists and turns in health-care policy and provision during the past few years have created opportunities and challenges for community-based health-care programs, for preventative health strategies and research in care providing and teaching.
In a Harris Poll conducted this summer and commissioned by the nursing honorary Sigma Theta Tau, 86 percent of respondents said they had real concerns about the nursing shortage, and persons over 40 years of age‹including that entire generation known as the baby boomers‹reported the highest levels of concern about what impact a shortage would have on the nation's quality of health care.
As in other disciplines, technology is making a mark on nursing education delivery. Deena Nardi at IU Northwest, for instance, has developed a health policy resource page with transcultural links; Barbara Ross at IUPU-Columbus is formulating a Web-based R.N.-B.S.N. program; faculty at IUPUI are team teaching an interactive course exploring life spans; IUB faculty are using an Interactive Learning Lab to teach community health assessment skills.
IUSON enters the new millennium offering a range of degree programs, from the associate to the doctoral. Its faculty research directions continue to stretch across diverse specialties---from community-based health to pediatric nursing, family caregiving and gerontology, and clinical oncology, to name just a few. What is most certain is that links between nursing service and nursing education will continue to flourish.
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http://www.iupui.edu/~nursing/
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