Beebe Healthcare and the University of Delaware are partnering in a new program designed to provide an educational pathway for nursing students in Sussex County.
Under the new program, beginning in fall 2014, students will enter the University of Delaware Associate in Arts Program (AAP) in Georgetown, where they will be on an advisement track that will prepare them to enter the Registered Nurse (RN) nursing program at Beebe Healthcare’s Margaret H. Rollins School of Nursing in Lewes.
After completing the Beebe RN program in two years, students will then be able to return to UD for completion of a BSN degree and then possibly continue on for an MSN degree.
“We are proud that the Margaret H. Rollins School of Nursing is participating in this cooperative nursing education program with the University of Delaware,” said Jeffrey M. Fried, president and CEO of Beebe Healthcare.
“It allows our two organizations to better prepare the next generation of nurses with a quality educational program and the hands-on experience in an acute-care hospital setting. At the same time, this cooperative program will support the students, many of whom are Sussex County residents, in their quest for the advanced degrees they will need to provide the highest standard of patient care in our increasingly complex medical environment.”
“To help address the national nursing shortage, we are very pleased to be able to partner with Margaret H. Rollins School of Nursing to offer our students this new career pathway,” Jack Bartley, faculty director of UD’s Associate in Arts Program, said. “The Institute of Medicine has called for increasing the proportion of nurses with baccalaureate degrees to 80 percent by 2020, and to achieve that goal, collaborative projects such as this one will be essential.”
Recruitment for the new program is now underway with representatives of the Margaret H. Rollins School of Nursing and UD’s Associate in Arts Program visiting southern Delaware high schools.
