TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The University of Alabama and DCH Regional Medical Center are poised to launch the state’s only Cooperative Education Program for student nurses.

The co-op program for nursing students, one of few nationwide, will begin enrolling students next semester, with participants slated to begin work at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa this summer, said Dr. Sara Barger, dean of UA’s Capstone College of Nursing.

“From the students’ perspective, we hope it will give them more experience, more money, and less reality shock upon graduation,” Barger said. The severe national nursing shortage has nursing salaries booming and job offers plentiful, but the extent of the patient load can be unsettling to first-year nurses with limited in-hospital experience, the dean said.

“An experience like Cooperative Education provides them with more grass-roots, real-world experiences,” she said.

Under the new arrangement, students will work full-time at the hospital during their summers and also during two spring semesters while upperclassmen.

“As students gain more training and experience on the job, they advance in their work responsibilities at the hospital and their salaries can increase, too,” said Eula Das, vice president of patient care at the Regional Medical Center.

“This unique co-op program for student nurses benefits the students, our patients and the community,” said Das. “This program provides another way for students to enter the nursing field. And when these students graduate, they come to work at the Regional Medical Center, already prepared to serve the community as highly skilled nurses. This program is another way the DCH Health System continues its commitment to be the employer of choice in this area.”

While nursing students entering the Cooperative Education program is unique, both Roy Gregg, director of UA’s co-op program, and Barger, said UA has a history of partnering with DCH.

“We’ve had engineering and business students co-oping with DCH for about 10 years,” Gregg said. “We’ve provided the Capstone College of Nursing with a successful model, which was then modified to ensure the desired educational outcomes for Capstone nursing students while still meeting the needs of our partner, DCH.”

Gregg said he foresees the program appealing, in particular, to non-traditional students, including those already working in hospitals but wanting to go back to school without piling up huge loan debts.

“Nursing clinical courses take so much time, it’s very difficult for students to work, even part-time,” Barger said. This arrangement allows students to focus on either school or work at any one time.

Because students choosing to participate in the co-op program would not take classes during the semesters in which they work, their program length would be increased by three semesters (excluding summers) compared to students who did not participate, Barger said.

One reason others have not pursued such an arrangement is likely because of the supervision demands required to safely and effectively administer such a program, Barger said.

“The most serious issue we had to work out was how were we going to get clinical supervision of these students, as required by law,” Barger said. “When you are talking about nursing students, you can’t put them anywhere unsupervised,” she said. “It’s very much a matter of patient safety.”

A master’s prepared registered nurse at the Regional Medical Center will serve as a co-op clinical supervisor for all students in the program. In addition, each upper division co-op student will have an experienced registered nurse serving as a nurse preceptor. These nurse preceptors will serve as mentors to the students. Lower division nursing students will work only as nursing assistants and do not require an individual nursing preceptor.

“We had to obtain permission from the state board of nursing to allow us to do this,” Barger said.

Three students have already committed to participating in the program and an earlier survey of students in UA’s Capstone College of Nursing indicated some two-thirds would be interested, Barger said, so the potential for growth is real.

“Other hospitals have also expressed interest,” Barger said.

The Capstone College of Nursing founded in 1976, graduates approximately 100 nurses a year from its baccalaureate program. Its graduate program for nurse case managers is one of the most innovative in the country. Partnerships with many of Alabama’s community colleges make obtaining a bachelor’s degree in nursing or a master’s degree in nursing a realistic goal for registered nurses. With more than 450 students and 28 faculty, the College supplies RNs and nurse case managers to many Alabama health care facilities and others throughout the United States. The College also runs a primary care clinic in rural Alabama to provide care for rural patients and rural learning experiences for students.