Preparing Nurse Educators: The Current Landscape.

There is an urgent need to address the nursing faculty shortage and evaluate current enrollment in nurse educator programs across the country. In this article, we describe a nationwide review of graduate nursing programs focusing on the nursing education shortage; program, faculty, and student demographics; methodological approaches; concentrations, content and practice areas; and future directions for graduate program development.

Emancipated minors: health policy and implications for nursing.

Emancipation is a process that offers adolescents a solution to serve in the role of an adult in circumstances that warrant the need for more autonomy. The process and definitions of emancipation are often ambiguous for adolescents, nurses, and other health care providers that provide services for these individuals. Emancipation can be additionally perplexing with the lack of overarching federal guidelines and the fragmented definitions among various states.

Contribution of nursing education programs to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in North Carolina.

Registered nurses play an important role in ensuring the delivery of quality health care, and their education is one key to achieving the goals of the Affordable Care Act. This article explores the contributions that nursing education programs in North Carolina can make in helping this legislation achieve its objectives.

Preparing the nurse scientist for academia and industry.

The number of doctoral programs in nursing has been increasing. However, these programs tend to focus on preparing nurse scientists to conduct research, and many spend little time preparing doctoral students for the educator, clinical researcher, or administrator role. Leaders of doctoral programs have identified the need to prepare doctoral students in the functional roles they will assume upon graduation, in addition to the researcher role.

The future of baccalaureate degrees for nurses.

PROBLEM.  Unlike other professional healthcare disciplines, the profession of nursing has multiple levels of entry. Recently, several states have proposed legislation to mandate completion of baccalaureate education after 10 years of nursing licensure.

Infusing gerontological nursing content into advanced practice nursing education.

The inclusion of gerontology content in the nursing curriculum is paramount as our population of older adults grows. As one of 10 recipients of the John A. Hartford Foundation/AACN awards for Enhancing Gerontological and Geriatric Nursing Education for Advanced Practice Nursing Programs, we successfully integrated gerontological/ geriatric content throughout core courses for all concentrations taught at the master's level.

Integrating gerontology competencies into graduate nursing programs.

Current demographic and health care utilization trends strongly indicate a rapidly increasing demand for nurses who are well qualified to care for older adults. Advanced practice nurses are positioned to assume leadership roles in geriatric nursing care; however, they must first acquire adequate preparatory education. This article describes two graduate nursing schools' curricular innovations that were funded by The John A.

Expansion of nurse anesthesia educational programs: where are the barriers?

CRNAs have been a major contributor to direct patient anesthesia care for more than 100 years. All indicators suggest a greater need for nurse anesthetist services in the future. Our ability to meet this increased demand will depend on wise decisions in accreditation and professional agendas and support of all CRNAs in this critical issue.