Robin Froman, R.N., Ph.D., F.A.A.N., is dean of the School of Nursing
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Contact: Rosanne Fohn, (210) 567-3079

Significantly increasing the number of nursing graduates in 2007 has resulted in the awarding of more than $686,500 in additional state funding for the School of Nursing at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

School to increase entering undergraduate class by 20 percent
The funding ― the second-highest awarded among public and private nursing schools in the state ― will be used to add eight new nursing faculty members and 80 additional nursing students in the undergraduate program over two years, beginning in January. This represents a 20 percent increase in size of the entry level nursing student class. It also will fund a new women’s health nurse practitioner minor.

UT Health Science Center program receives second highest funding in state
The UT Health Science Center nursing program graduated 202 undergraduate nurses and 93 graduate nurses for a total of 295 nurses in 2007. This is an increase of 88 graduates over 2006 graduation figures. This places the Health Science Center second in increased graduates, behind Texas Tech University, which produced 90 additional graduates― two more than the Health Science Center ― in 2007. No other schools in San Antonio received funding through the program.

Part of Professional Nursing Shortage Program
The funding was awarded by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Professional Nursing Shortage Program based on schools’ ability to increase their number of nursing graduates. The goal of the program is to produce more nurses to stem an increasing shortage of nurses in the state and nation.

50 percent more nursing graduates needed by 2010
According to the Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies November 2006 report, “The Supply of and Demand for Registered Nurses and Nurse Graduates in Texas: A Report to the Texas Legislature,” Texas nursing programs will need to increase graduates by at least 50 percent by 2010 to meet the needs for nursing care in 2020, when many nurses now employed will retire and the number of older Americans who will need care is expected to sharply increase.

Student selection and support are keys to higher graduation rate
“The key to our success is that we do a better job of selecting students and supporting them through the program,” explained Dean Robin Froman, R.N., Ph.D., F.A.A.N. “We take our job very seriously. If we don’t do this and students drop out of the program, we will have unfilled seats for four semesters. We cannot add students to the program once it gets underway,” she explained.

Self-sustaining faculty funding is the goal
“Doing things the right way from the beginning not only helps us provide more and better-educated nurses, it is our program’s lifeblood for the future,” Froman said. “Each time we increase our number of admissions and graduates through the biennial funding time frame, we will be eligible for increased state funding. We believe we can keep up this enrollment and graduation increase so that our faculty salary sources will eventually become self-sustaining,” Dean Froman explained.

New concentration in women’s health to be available next fall
The new nurse practitioner concentration in women’s health also will open in the fall of 2008 with a cohort of seven students. In this specialty, nurses are qualified to provide prenatal care, family planning and other services specifically for women. Nurse practitioners are advance-practice nurses who can prescribe medications, diagnose, and deliver health care treatments, with collaboration from a physician, Dean Froman explained.

“We are conducting a formal survey of health care agencies and have heard from our own students that there is a need for this new specialty. Some of our students have been enrolling in our family nurse practitioner program because this specialty includes some women’s health practice, but we expect our new women’s health concentration to be in high demand,” she said.

Nurse practitioner master’s degrees offered in several specialties
The Health Science Center already offers nurse practitioner master’s degrees in acute care, adult psychiatric mental health, critical care nursing, family psychiatric mental health, gerontology, medical-surgical nursing and pediatric nursing, in addition to the family practice program.

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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $576 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $15.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 22,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields.