Jon Mark Beilue: Filling the rural nursing shortage

Innovative consortium, with WT backing, addresses concerns

Sonya Medina was in a car line on a Monday afternoon in Hereford waiting to pick up her 6-year-old daughter Lizette from her St. Anthony’s school.

Medina is 34. She has been a medical assistant at the Hereford Regional Medical Center for about 10 years. She is a mother and wife.

She would like to a nurse practitioner in her hometown and is studying to do just that. If not for the new Rural Nursing Education Consortium (RNEC) – a collaboration with two community colleges and five rural hospital districts – Medina would not be doing any of this.

“I thought, ‘Why not?’” she said. “It’s here in town. I don’t have to travel. I don’t have to depend on someone else to help with my daughter. I don’t have to put the burden on anyone else. I am here for my family while taking classes here.”

Medina’s profile and story is similar to the 52 other students in five locations in the Texas Panhandle in the first semester of the nursing consortium.  The RNEC is meeting students where they are while making a nursing education more convenient and affordable. The goal is to recruit, educate and retain nurses for rural hospital districts who often have to fight a shortage of nurses.

Amarillo College and Frank Phillips College in Borger, with state approval, have collaborated with the hospital districts of Coon Memorial in Dalhart, Moore County in Dumas, Ochiltree County in Perryton, Hereford Regional Medical Center and Golden Plains Community in Borger to address those needs.

And it’s fully supported by West Texas A&M University, which fits its WT 125 initiative with increased focus on the needs and issues of the Panhandle.

“I taught here (at WT) several years ago and we talked about being the university of the Texas Panhandle and about rural issues, but never like we are now,” said Dr. Holly Jeffreys, named the head of WT’s nursing department in August. “The consortium is absolutely a benefit to WT, and we can definitely benefit them as well.”

Classes are at the AC campuses in Hereford and Dumas and Frank Phillips College campuses in Borger, Dalhart and Perryton. The hospital districts in each community provide instructors, who teach either face-to-face or via livestream, supported by an onsite instructor, to the campuses.

“The state mandates a student-faculty ratio in the clinicals, so that formula creates this problem for smaller rural hospital districts like Hereford, Borger and Dumas,” said Dr. Jud Hicks, Frank Phillips president.

 “What happens with a robust Amarillo College nursing program in the city, local students go off to even Amarillo to get an LVN or RN, they don’t come back so the rural hospital sits there with a nursing shortage.

“There was this thought of why not create a consortium and grown your own. That’s what we’re trying to do. We have college campuses in every one of these communities. The two community colleges provide the curriculum. The instructors are employed by the hospitals doing the work for the college.”

Most of the RNEC funding is through grants though the hospital districts have some financial investment.  Hospital administrators believe the investment will pay off in educating local nurses rather than spending time and money on recruiting and retaining and paying bonuses for nurses to remain in these communities.

“The quick and short answer is this will provide a supply of nurses, specifically hometown nurses, for our community hospitals,” said Jeff Turner, CEO of the Moore County Hospital District in Dumas. “The little bit longer answer is so often students’ clinical experiences are in the largest hospitals in the bigger cities, and it’s difficult to get them back. We’ve got needs for RNs, nurse practitioners, LVNs, the full gamut.

“The demand for nurses exists and continues to grow. The current pandemic is a great example. We’ve really had to work hard to staff units and provide care in ways we’ve not been called upon to do. That’s very nurse-intensive. That places a higher demand for us on that skill set. I do not see the demand for nursing decreasing.”

A nursing student, like Medina, can study through two semesters of the LVN core nurse training program. After May 2021, she can take her nursing board exam. Clinicals and simulation equipment, in the past requiring students to be in Amarillo or other cities, can be done in the five local communities.

“It’s an effort to keep nurses here in Hereford,” said Medina, who applied for and received two scholarships. “If we drive to Amarillo and do clinicals on site, like at Northwest Texas or BSA (Baptist St. Anthony’s), then the chances are we get a job over there. That’s how the system works.

“But if I can, I might as well stay here. I live here, why not work here?”

With regard to WT, Jeffreys said providing some simulation equipment is a doable.  Consortium students looking for a capstone educational experience can stay in the area to pursue a bachelor’s degree, enroll in the RN program, or earn a masters in nursing or family nurse practitioner.

The consortium has the support and backing of WT president Dr. Walter Wendler and Dr. Brad Johnson, vice president of strategic relations.

“I sound like a broken record,” Hicks said, “but a lot of this has to do with Walter Wendler. When he talks about the value of community college, get that associate degree and then come see me and get that career started, it’s huge.

“This is like big brother. When WT endorses something in this region, it’s like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. It validates everything. For small community colleges in Texas, this does not hurt at all. Their support – and I’m not exaggerating this – is just so powerful.”