MSU College of Nursing among schools seeing more applicants as nurse shortage looms

LANSING — Maddie Dragon quickly learned she didn’t have nearly the amount of creativity as her classmates in the engineering field. She had picked the wrong major.

Her career as an engineering major at Michigan State University lasted all of two weeks. Instead, the 20-year-old from Northville pursued her interests in science and the human body by changing to a major in kinesiology.

Yet, a simple conversation changed her future plans again.

“I was sitting in a dorm with a few of my friends and one was talking about how nervous she was for applying to the nursing school, as the application deadline was approaching,” Dragon said in an email. “Something clicked and I knew that nursing was the only major I could really see myself in.”

Getting into nursing school isn't easy. It’s a competitive process at the MSU College of Nursing and nursing schools across the country. Thousands of hopeful students apply, but there aren’t enough spots.

U.S. nursing schools turned away more than 80,000 applicants for baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2019 even though they were all qualified candidates, according to a 2019-20 report from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

And there is an ongoing growing demand for nurses, with a formula used by Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine scholars projecting the shortage at more than 510,000 registered nurses by 2030. 

All of these projections came before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The MSU College of Nursing has seen its own spike in students applying. In the spring of 2017, the college’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing program received 124 applications and admitted 44 students. Last fall, 174 students applied and 80 were admitted, according to information provided by Kristofer Karol, marketing and communications director for the MSU College of Nursing.

The number of applications for the accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program — for students who already have bachelor’s degrees — rose from 126 applicants in 2017 to 133 so far in 2021. 

“While our numbers are up — and that’s great, we want to accept more people,” said Leigh Small, associate dean for academic affairs for the MSU College of Nursing. “But we are limited.”

The biggest issue hindering the MSU College of Nursing’s ability to accept more students are the limitations on the required clinical experiences for nursing students brought on by COVID-19. 

Students typically complete their clinical requirements by working with a medical or surgical unit or a number of other medical teams. The experience allows them to apply the skills and knowledge gleaned from course work, lab work and reading, Small said. But medical facilities caring for more and more patients with COVID-19 let fewer and fewer students in to complete their clinical work. MSU officials also try to avoid putting students in medical facilities with large numbers of COVID-19 patients, Small said. 

It’s forcing nursing schools to look at alternative ways for students to complete their clinical requirements. The staff shortages at hospitals highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic has forced health care providers to find different ways to make nursing students part of their teams, Small said. One way includes considering education units that keep students on medical units longer and gain more experience in one unit or hospital, serving as a potential bridge for students toward a job in that unit or hospital once they graduate.

“With the high number of COVID-19 patients, we have to focus on them,” Small said. “The exploration and these different things, we’re trying to fit the conversations in between those pressing priorities.” 

When the pandemic first began in March, clinics and hospitals didn’t want the students inside, she said, but that has since changed. 

Many nursing students at MSU complete their clinical requirements with in-state medical providers, such as Sparrow Health System, McLaren, Henry Ford Health System and Ascension Michigan.

Dragon completed her clinical requirements this past fall. Her focus was on patient care and she started by taking vitals and helping move patients. After sitting in classrooms for years, she was able to apply what she'd learned in the real world. 

“I had not heard about the shortage of nurses until after I had joined the school, but it made me that much more excited to be able to (partake) in the solution,” Dragon said. “It is a very noble career, and I could not picture myself in any other place.”

Contact Mark Johnson at 517-377-1026 or at majohnson2@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByMarkJohnson.