U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand today announced $335,235 in federal funding for St. John Fisher College’s Wegmans School of Nursing training program in Rochester. The program, called the “Primary Care Family Nurse Practitioner Traineeship Program,” will help provide traineeship funding for graduate students pursuing either a Master’s Degree in Advanced Practice Nursing or a Post-Baccalaureate Doctor of Nursing. This Wegmans School of Nursing Program at St. John Fisher College aims to train these students to serve as primary care family nurse practitioners who will work in underserved and rural areas with vulnerable and disadvantaged populations. This federal funding is just the first part of a two-year program; another $363,301 will be awarded in FY2015 for the second year of the Advanced Education Nursing Traineeship program.
“With the severe shortage of primary care physicians and nurses in New York State, it is important for the federal government to support these kinds of valuable, career-advancing programs for our nurses,” said Senator Schumer. “These funds will help graduate nursing students in New York State receive the training they need to become primary care family nurses and serve disadvantaged and rural areas. Gaining this experience is critical to their success when they graduate. This funding is just what the doctor ordered for our nurses; it will lead to increased jobs and overall better care for New York State residents.”
“It is so important that our schools have the tools and resources they need to train the next generations of nurses,” said Senator Gillibrand. “We currently are facing a shortage of doctors and nurses, and this funding will go a long way to ensure we have more trained professionals ready to address 21st century healthcare challenges. St. John Fisher’s Wegmans School of Nursing will use this investment to prepare their students with the experience they need to become quality primary nurses.”
“This traineeship grant will support the education of 24 graduate students enrolled in the Wegmans School of Nursing Family Nurse Practitioner program, accelerate their completion of the program, and deploy them into health care settings to increase access to primary care in our region,” said Dianne Cooney Miner, Dean of the St. John Fisher College Wegmans School of Nursing. “I am very grateful for the continued support and recognition of our program’s contribution from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I also want to thank Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand for their efforts to end the primary care workforce shortage and their support of Title VIII funding to advance nursing education.”
The project will be accomplished by completing several objectives. The main objective is to recruit, retain and graduate primary care family nurse practitioners who participate in the traineeship program. Another is to offer mentoring support for those graduate nursing students while they are in the program. Third, the program will also expand clinical sites to include the kinds of areas these graduates will be working in upon graduation, such as inner city, medically underserved, and rural community areas. Finally, this program aims to provide clinical residency opportunities to these nursing students and evaluate the effectiveness of the traineeship program overall so that it may become more and more beneficial to students.