Tulane University Establishes Inaugural Nursing Program

One of Louisiana‘s largest universities will soon add its first nursing program.

Tulane University in New Orleans announced recently it will launch a nursing program this fall to reside within the Tulane School of Medicine. Incoming Dean of Nursing Brenda Douglas, Ph.D., RN, told BestColleges that the goal is to educate medical and nursing students side by side so students can acquire team-based skills that can be applied after graduation.

“You can explain these things in a classroom, but to actually do it is different,” she said.

Tulane’s nursing program will offer a 16-month accelerated bachelor of science in nursing (BSN).

Unlike many accelerated BSN programs, however, Tulane’s will not just be open to those who already hold a bachelor’s degree. Instead, Douglas said the program is open to all students with at least 60 college credits that cover prerequisite courses. That includes those with an associate degree and those who started, but did not complete, another bachelor’s program.

Douglas had just retired from her previous role at Northeastern University in Massachusetts after 23 years in academia when she got a call from Tulane University asking her to interview to be dean of its upcoming nursing program.

“I was serious about the opportunity,” she said, “but I honestly didn’t think it was for me just because I was living in Massachusetts and this would be in Louisiana.”

After several rounds of interviews, however, that perception changed.

She was struck by the university’s commitment to investing in downtown New Orleans and the region’s healthcare outcomes by establishing this new nursing program. At the time, Tulane had recently announced a $600 million investment in New Orleans in collaboration with LCMC Health, a nonprofit health network in the region, to improve healthcare offerings and conduct more medical research in the city.

Moreover, Douglas saw a city and state in need of more nurses. Stepping in as dean was a chance to address that shortage and apply what she had learned over two decades in academia and nursing.

“In order to address the shortage of nurses, [Tulane] realized [it] really needed a nursing program as well,” Douglas said. “If you want to address the health needs of New Orleans, you also need to help bolster the nursing workforce.”

Louisiana expects a shortfall of 6,000 nurses each year, she said.

It’s why the state aims to double its nursing workforce by 2030. Douglas hopes Tulane’s accelerated program will help the state reach this goal.

“With a program like this, you’ll see the effects of your investment very quickly,” she said.

Douglas also saw her role as a potential to inject some unique elements into a nursing program.

For one, this program is under the Tulane University School of Medicine. It’s not unheard of for a nursing program to fall under an institution’s medical school umbrella, but it is rare in the U.S.

Douglas said this partnership means nursing and medical school students will have ample opportunities to learn together, rather than in silos. In practice, nurses and doctors must work together constantly, so it makes sense that they would learn together — and from each other — too.

“What that does is there is a very strong investment in interprofessional education, where nursing students and medical students learn team-based care together,” Douglas said.

How does that show up in practice?

According to Douglas, one example comes through the use of standardized patient training. This form of training uses actors to stand in as patients so that both medical and nursing students can work together to simulate a real clinical encounter.

At most nursing schools, a faculty member would likely stand in as a doctor for the simulation. However, because Tulane University’s nursing program is tied to the medical school, medical students are the ones representing the doctors. Douglas said this training would more accurately represent a clinical setting, and it also gives students from each program a chance to talk afterward about how they could have better helped each other address the patient’s needs.

Douglas added that training won’t just happen through simulations.

Tulane’s nursing program already has an agreement with LCMC to place nursing students in any of the system’s nine hospitals throughout Louisiana. The local Veterans Affairs hospital also asked to partner with Tulane.

“There are a lot of people and organizations that have come forward to say, ‘We would really like to work with your students,'” Douglas said. “I don’t anticipate that there will be any shortage of robust clinical opportunities for our students.”

The nursing program will also include a dedicated academic advisor, a success coach, and a financial aid advisor, Douglas added.

Tulane University will admit up to 36 students into the accelerated BSN program for its inaugural cohort this fall, Douglas said.

The eventual goal is for the university to admit 72 students each semester, three times a year, she said. That growth will likely happen little by little.

Even so, Douglas said she doesn’t anticipate Tulane will stop there.

The university will add more degrees as the program matures with the hope of one day becoming a full-fledged school of nursing. Adding a traditional bachelor’s track would make sense, she said, but it’s still unclear what the next degree type would be and when Tulane would add it.