Fifty-eight UCLA students currently enrolled in the School of Nursing are on track to graduate in 2010, constituting the first class of students to have completed the undergraduate nursing program since 1995.
The School of Nursing shut down its undergraduate nursing program over 13 years ago due to budget concerns.
The program was reopened in 2006 in response to a growing statewide nursing shortage of as many as 59,000 nurses, according to a 2007 UC San Francisco report.
“California ranks 49th in the nation in nursing-to-patient ratio,” said Lindsay Williams, president of Nursing Students of UCLA, a student group. “I think UCLA recognized the problem, and the late (School of Nursing) Dean Marie Cowan worked really hard to get the nursing program back up and running.”
Few specific changes have been made to the new program, but the school plans to focus more on “the wide use of technology in caring for our patients,” said Courtney Lyder, the current dean of the School of Nursing.
Lyder said that the main goal of the undergraduate nursing curriculum is still to provide a general education in nursing. The general education covers “the arts and science of providing quality care for patients.”
He added that admission into the reopened undergraduate program is “extremely competitive.”
Fifty-five students were admitted to the program last year out of a pool of about 1,700 applicants, Lyder said.
“I think that because our program is relatively small, our students get a lot of one-on-one attention from the faculty,” Lyder said.
“They receive a good foundation in both the liberal arts and sciences, as well as how these are applied to actual patients. It’s a much more intimate learning experience than they would get with other, larger majors.”
Williams, a third-year nursing student, said she agrees.
“The level of support that you get from the School of Nursing is different from any other major,” she said. “I’ve taken chemistry and life sciences and it’s really competitive because everyone is trying to get at one thing and that’s the way they structure the class.”
Williams said that in nursing, “The competition was to get into the program, but once you’re in they want you to succeed.”
“We have small classes that we all take at the same time, so there’s a real sense of collaboration with everyone else,” she said.
The 2010 nursing class is currently preparing to participate in clinical internships, which begin next quarter. They will work intensive 12-hour shifts in hospitals alongside experienced nurses, said third-year nursing student Lindsay Sandberg.
Sandberg described the undergraduate nursing curriculum as “challenging, but worthwhile.”
“It’s not easy to be in all the classes with the medical school kids and to have to take nursing classes at the same time, but it’s definitely a rewarding experience,” she said.
“This program is one of the best in the country, and it’s right out of high school, which is not that common.”
Sandberg added, “When I graduate, I’ll get my degree and be able to go directly into nursing.”
The undergraduate curriculum includes a number of labs designed to give students hands-on experience in the field.
“Last quarter, we had our nursing fundamentals class where we gave flu shots to students on campus, which was really fun, and we had a hands-on lab where we were able to administer intravenous (therapy) on each other,” said Emma Gauci, a third-year nursing student.
“We did a blood pressure clinic where we set up along Bruin Walk and took people’s blood pressure for practice, which was an amazing, exciting experience,” Sandberg said.
According to Lyder, the undergraduate program is designed to introduce nursing students to all areas of nursing and ready them for a career as general registered nurses.
“Our undergrads are being prepared to go directly into general nursing,” Lyder said.
After they graduate, Williams, Sandberg and Gauci all said they plan to work as registered nurses before going on to graduate school to train in a specialization and receive degrees as nurse practitioners.
UCLA currently offers two degrees in undergraduate nursing, according to the School of Nursing Web site.
The general four-year nursing program leads to a bachelor of science in nursing and eligibility to take the National Council Licensing Examination for certification as a registered nurse.
A two-year master’s-entry clinical nurse program is also available for students who wish to go into nursing but are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in other majors.