As if their schedules weren’t packed enough, University of Miami pre-med students Emily Chinyere Anozie, Sumeet Thareja and Rishi Panchal recently volunteered their time to care for patients of Douglas Gardens Hospice. All three are grateful for the specialized training and extraordinary insight they received from their involvement with the hospice, which provides compassionate end-of-life care to Miami-Dade County residents who have a life-limiting illness.

Sumeet Thareja, Emily Chinyere Anozie and Rishi Panchal on the Douglas Gardens campus.

“This volunteer work is preparing me for big decisions I will face as a doctor,” said Rishi Panchal, whose father is a physician. “In terminal cases, you have to know when its time to stop treating people and let them live out their days with as much peace and comfort as is possible.” Sumeet Thareja agreed, saying, “I’m learning what an important role hospice plays in the overall healthcare spectrum. After seeing first-hand the level of services this place provides to its clients, I won’t hesitate to recommend hospice care to a patient if it’s appropriate.”

Jody Gross, MSN, OCN, executive director of Douglas Gardens Hospice, believes that having medical students experience end-of-life issues is crucial to the future doctors. “Physicians spend many years being taught how to save lives, so it’s critical to their patients that they learn that referring someone to hospice is not viewed as a failure on their part,” she said. “Our goal is to ensure pain-free days and avoid unnecessary treatments.”

The students said the experience was invaluable and will help them in their careers. As Emily Anozie noted, “For me, working at Douglas Gardens Hospice is truly a sensitizing experience which I will always remember. Allowing me to get to know these patients at the end of their lives is a gift that will stay with me forever and make me a better physician.”



Westside Regional Medical Center is dedicated to providing a comprehensive education program designed to promote a high standard of patient care and to ensure and improve the competency of persons providing health care. Westside Regional Medical Center is unique in that it provides both classroom and clinical instruction for the courses it provides. This follow up clinical instruction promotes the safe and effective performance of students and familiarizes them with their responsibilities before initiating care. Continuing education credits are awarded for all class participation. The department offers the following programs:

  • Basic Life Support
  • Advanced Cardiac Life Support
  • Basic Life Support Instructor Course
  • Advanced cardiac Life Support Instructor Course
  • Basic Arrhythmia
  • 12 Lead EKG
  • Critical Care Course
  • CVICU Course
  • Preceptor Workshops
  • Charge Nurse Workshops
  • Balloon Pump Workshops
  • Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy
  • Multiple on line programs through Healthstream
  • Numerous Self Study programs
  • Stroke Classes


The Nova Southeastern Nursing Department is moving forward again. Sensitive to the nursing shortage and the increased need for nursing faculty to educate both new nurses and nurse educators, this fall NSU Nursing added a new PhD in Nursing Education. Considered the pinnacle of academic achievement, the PhD in Nursing Education program is designed to provide the tools that prepare nurses to conduct research and serve in nursing faculty leadership roles.

The United States remains in the middle of a nursing shortage expected to intensify as baby boomers age and health care needs increase (http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/FactSheets/NursingShortage.htm). Auerbach, Buerhaus & Staiger, (2007) project that the U.S. shortage of registered nurses (RNs) will increase to 340,000 by the year 2020. This shortage is expected to increase by three times the current rate over the next 13 years. In order to meet the demand for nursing care, nursing colleges and universities across the country are moving to expand enrollment levels. However, tandem to the nursing shortage is the availability of qualified nursing faculty to educate individuals wishing to pursue a nursing career. According to a report on enrollment and graduation in undergraduate and graduate nursing programs conducted by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) (2006-2007 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing),in 2006 U.S. nursing schools turned away 42,866 qualified applicants to these programs “due to an insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints” (http://www.aacn.nche.edu/IDS/datarep.htm). Almost three quarters (71.0%) of the nursing schools responding to the 2006 survey pointed to faculty shortages as a reason for not accepting all qualified applicants into nursing programs.

Faculty shortages at nursing schools across the country are limiting student capacity at a time when the need for nurses continues to grow. This current and projected nursing faculty shortage impacts the nursing profession on a national level, creating an increased demand for faculty positions at all levels of nursing education. Health care institutions are looking for nurses prepared at the doctoral level to develop evidence-based practice guidelines, organize new and innovative nursing care delivery systems, and serve in research/evidence-based practice positions within their education departments. The NSU Ph.D. in Nursing Education is designed for M.S.N.-prepared nursing faculty members, nurse researchers and nurses in clinical practice who wish to advance their careers pursing scholarly roles in the academic setting, community education, nursing organizations and health care institutions.



From the news desk to the health care administrator’s desk, attention remains focused on the nursing workforce shortage. But news of the shortage of qualified nursing educators needed to teach tomorrow’s nurses is oftentimes missing from the headlines.

A 2005 study by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported that more than 30,000 qualified candidates were denied enrollment in nursing programs because of a lack of nursing faculty. The United States is in the midst of a nursing shortage expected to intensify as baby boomers age and the need for health care services grows. With a projected shortfall of 800,000 registered nurses (RNs) by the year 2020, the need to educate more nurses for the health care industry is urgent. But who will teach them?

For more than a quarter century, Florida International University (FIU) College of Nursing & Health Sciences (CNHS) has been pioneering the development of innovative education programs responding to the needs of the health care community. FIU CNHS answers the call again with a set of programs that reaches out to potential future educators for help in ensuring the future of the nursing workforce.

Post-Master’s Certificate in Nursing Education: An Immediate Solution To An Immediate Need

In 2007, FIU Nursing successfully obtained government funding and support to establish this specialty track aimed at preparing graduates to function as nursing educators in a variety of academic settings, including schools of nursing and health care facilities.

Building upon a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree, this certificate track consists of a combination of courses that prepares graduates in the competencies that are essential to teach nursing in an increasingly complex health care environment. Goals of the program include:

  • Providing nurse faculty with the knowledge, skills, and structured experiences to enhance classroom and clinical teaching and learning;
  • Preparing nurse educators from diverse backgrounds who can teach nursing students to provide culturally competent care for diverse communities; and
  • Providing nurse educators with the expertise to use technologically enhanced curricula and facilities to teach

By designing the track as a 16-credit, 9-month curriculum (assuming full-time study), that reaches out to the master’s prepared nursing professional, FIU CNHS can quickly and steadily grow the pool of urgently needed nursing faculty.

Grow Our Own Nursing Faculty Program: Schools Collaborate To Ensure The Future of Nursing

Launched in 2006, the Grow Our Own Nursing Faculty program at FIU CNHS is an innovative way to directly impact the nursing faculty shortage by both educating and placing educators directly with the academic institutions that need them.

The National League for Nursing Accrediting Commissions requires that nursing faculty must hold a Master’s degree in nursing to teach in a community college nursing program. With this requirement in mind, the region’s three largest nursing education institutions – FIU, Miami-Dade College and Broward Community College – devised an approach to recruit local RNs and encourage them to pursue a career in nursing education in order to fill particular faculty vacancies

Thanks to an $820,0000 grant from the Health Foundation of South Florida, the program was established. Candidates in the program must hold a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from FIU or another accredited nursing school in the last 10 years, and have sufficient work experience. Through the grant, students receive financial support in the form of complete scholarships (covering tuition, educational costs and stipends), which allows them to purse the MSN nursing education degree full-time. In return, the candidates enter a 2-year work commitment to teach at one of the community colleges upon graduation.



If you talk to Joe Steier about business, sooner or later he’ll turn the topic to sports. That’s because the 6’5″ CEO of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based Signature HealthCARE thinks they have a lot in common. Steier, who played basketball in high school and golf in college, believes you master competitive challenges through preparation and teamwork.

That philosophy carries over to executive education. Signature HealthCARE is a family-based organization with a mission of revolutionizing the long-term care industry. Steier knew his company couldn’t be a transformational force unless his senior management team had the necessary business skills. That meant putting the entire group through an executive MBA program. Steier was looking to do more than pay for degrees; he wanted a return on investment in the form of a competitive advantage.

“As a CEO, if you invest your education dollars in one great institution, the curriculum is more consistent, and your team walks away with a more meaningful experience,” he says. Steier found the educational partner he was looking for in the University of Miami School of Business Administration and its Executive MBA in Health Sector Management and Policy program. He was among the first wave of Signature HealthCARE executives to attend the program, beginning in January 2005. To date, 14 of the company’s management team have earned their MBA in the UM program, and another eight are currently enrolled.

The first group of Signature HealthCARE executives to go through the UM School of Business Administration’s Executive MBA in Health Sector Management and Policy program.

Signature HealthCARE, has more than 10,000 employees and operates 65 long-term care facilities in seven states along the southeastern U.S. “We consider ourselves one organization trying to change how society perceives nursing homes,” says Steier. “We don’t want to be labeled with the traditional stigma associated with nursing homes; our core business has been changing the image of those types of facilities through our innovative quality-of-life programs, education, product development and a culture change for our residents.”

As a result of its educational partnership with the School of Business, Signature HealthCARE has begun using the classroom knowledge gained to put four large-scale projects in motion:

  • A dashboard operating system to provide guidelines and key metrics for processes throughout the organization. Clinical and financial data is analyzed on a daily basis.
  • Replacing the traditional regional operating model with a facility advisory board structure to create greater communication and teamwork between the home office and facilities. Service gaps are being eliminated, and more focus is being put on the residents.
  • Overhauling human resource management practices to better attract, utilize and retain the best employees. This is being accomplished through superior job designs, behaviorally based interviews and application of motivation theories.
  • Creating the Institute for Long-Term Care Studies — a stand-alone non-profit learning organization focusing on education and training, with an emphasis on adult learning strategies. High-quality content is delivered through state-of-the-art technology.
    Steier says such classroom-to-workplace shifts result in a huge return on investment for the company. “By having multiple executives in the MBA program exploring the issues our company faces, we solve two or three global problems a year that we never would have recognized otherwise,” he says. “When you do a knowledge transfer with a cohesive group at the same time, they’re going to respond.

“We have a pay-for-performance incentive in Maryland, we have a big pharmacology task force lowering medication costs, and we’re doing a lot of outcome studies. Overall, we’re seeing costs coming down and quality going up.”