Not only is Texas short 22,000 nurses,  but nursing schools are facing barriers. That's because class sizes can't increase without more educators. But, The Victoria College is now in a unique position to possibly change that.
Nursing pays well and it's in high demand. The place to get started is The Victoria College. The college offers two career paths -- a Licensed Vocational Nurse program and is also the only institution in the 8 county area that prepares Registered Nurses with an Associate Degree in Nursing. "The RN program has been greatly expanded over the years. We're currently taking about 120 new students each year," says Victoria College President Dr Tom Butler. There are currently about 200 students enrolled in the RN program. That is up from a class size of less than 20 back in the 1980's and about 100 students per class in the 1990's. Butler says for a school the size of Victoria College, the campus has one of the largest RN programs in the state. But, qualified students have to be turned away each year because of limits in student-teacher ratio and the requirement for educators to have earned a Master Degree.
However, Victoria College is now involved in a pilot project, funded by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board that would allow Bachelor degreed nurses to teach in the clinical setting. Butler says, "this pilot project is being looked at throughout the state. If it's successful, if we have good pass rates as a result and we believe we will, it's probably a model that will be translated throughout the rest of the state to expand nursing."
But, The Victoria College can't beat the nursing shortage alone. "I think the problems are we just need more nurses than ever before," says Butler. And that is why Victoria College works closely with the University of Houston - Victoria and our local healthcare facilities to make sure the needs of the community are being met. "Really and truly our main benefit is having a great nursing school program right here in town. That is huge for this area," says Sammie Drehr, Chief Nursing Officer at DeTar Hospital.
Some of the VC nursing students train where they will be working. Lynne Voskamp, Chief Nursing Officer at Citizens Medical Center says, "We're able to hire some of the students in the VC Associate Degree program. The purpose of that is it helps transition them from the role of student into the RN role."
"It's a partnership with the community, with our hospitals and other healthcare providers, even with UHV. It's really going to be all of us working together that we're able to address the issue," says Butler.
Dr Butler says the ultimate measure of the college's success is the pass rate on the national exam that the Associate Degree students take in order to earn their RN license. He says the pass rate for VC students is 85%.

Friday night in part three of our series, we'll take a look at how the programs at UHV have been tailored to help our local healthcare facilities and how President Obama's stimulus package will effect nursing in our area.