VGCC To Expand Nursing Program; Plans To Add Weekend/Night Option
Vance-Granville Community College is doing its part to try and alleviate the nursing shortage throughout its service area.
The North Carolina Board of Nursing has approved the college’s application to increase the number of students in its Associate Degree Nursing program from 80 to 110. The first of these additional nursing students will be accepted in May 2004, according to VGCC Director of Nursing Beth Phillips.
Expansion of the ADN program, which prepares women and men to become registered nurses, comes on the heels of an increase approved earlier this year to expand the VGCC Practical Nursing program from 20 to 32 students. Associate Degree Nursing is a two-year program that awards an Associate in Applied Science degree, and Practical Nursing is a diploma program that takes 12 months to complete.
“We already have plenty of applicants to fill the increased quotas,” Phillips said. “There are about a thousand applicants annually for the nursing programs, and several hundred of these have completed the pre-requisite classes to get into the programs.”
To accommodate the expanded number of Associate Degree Nursing students, Vance-Granville is planning a weekend/evening training option. Classes would be held in the evenings when classrooms are available, and clinical training would be held on weekends when there would be sites in area hospitals available. Vance-Granville has agreements with Maria Parham, Granville and Franklin Regional medical centers, as well as major hospitals in Durham and Raleigh for clinical experience for its nursing students.
Evening and weekend classes should particularly appeal to people who have to work days, Phillips pointed out. “We are seeing an increase in licensed practical nurses who would like to return to school for the ADN program,” she said. “They could do it this way, as well as the stay-at-home mom whose husband could be with the children on weekends and evenings.”
All of the nursing applicants and anyone else who is interested in nursing training are invited to attend an information session on the evening/weekend option. It will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 8, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the Civic Center on the main campus.
Anyone interested in information on training in nursing or any of the healthcare fields should contact VGCC Student Services at (252) 492-2061.
Maria Orsini, an instructor in Associate Degree Nursing, teaches basic Spanish phrases nurses will need to relate to patients they will see in area hospitals and clinics
