School of Nursing Receives $1.4 Million Grant

The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded the School of Nursing $1.4 million in support of its foreign physicians nursing program. The program educates medical doctors trained in other countries who, for a variety of reasons, have not successfully passed required exams to practice in the United States. At a time when the national nursing shortage continues to worsen, the grant will help the School of Nursing prepare and graduate 100 new registered nurses by December 2005.

“We are thrilled to be able to expand our program using these funds,” says Divina Grossman, dean of the School of Nursing. “We currently have 800 applicants to this program. This grant will enable us to add registered nurses to the workforce in South Florida and provide hope and opportunity to those foreign physician-immigrants who are working in low-paying jobs to return to the health care field as registered nurses.”

Part of the grant will test a distance-education component of the program with a pilot group of 20-30 students in north Florida. Hospital Corporation of America/East Florida Division has committed $500,000 in matching funds to support full-tuition scholarships. Data will be collected to assess the effectiveness of the program as a retraining model and its impact on the nursing shortage.

From L to R: Ronald Berkman, Executive Dean of the College of Health and Urban Affairs; Divina Grossman, Dean of the School of Nursing; and Stephen Royal, CEO of Hospital Corporation of America East Florida Division.