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MUSC nurses, students voice state’s nursing needs
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During
the week of Feb. 22, South Carolina registered nurses, student nurses
and educators from MUSC College of Nursing and nursing schools
throughout the Palmetto state attended the Second Annual One Voice One
Plan Legislative Event held Feb. 22.
The event focused on raising awareness of the Critical Needs Nursing
Initiative (CNNI) to members of the South Carolina General Assembly.
The One Voice One Plan and Critical Needs Nursing Initiative was
established in 2006 when nursing leaders throughout South Carolina held
a summit to address the lack of nursing faculty and its impact on the
state’s nursing shortage. In 2007, the General Assembly enacted the
CNNI Act that established the infrastructure to expand the number of
new nursing graduates with five priorities: increase faculty salaries;
increase the number of full-time faculty; provide scholarships and
loans for nurses interested in becoming faculty; establish an Office of
Healthcare Workforce Research; and develop new ways to teach nurses via
simulation education.
 State
Representative Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston, joins MUSC’s Dr. Marilyn
Schaffner and June Darby at the One Voice One Plan legislative event on
Feb. 26 luncheon (Not pictured was Carol McDougall, R.N., a College of
Nursing instructor).
This venue provided a unique opportunity for S.C. House and Senate
members to meet and hear from nurses in their role as constituent,
student, or educator. Marilyn Schaffner, Ph.D., R.N., MUSC hospital
chief nursing officer and administrator for Clinical Services, and June
Darby, R.N., administrator for MUHA’s Neuroscience Service Line and
incoming president for the South Carolina Organization of Nurse
Leaders, attended the event. Nancy Duffy, DNP, R.N., director of
undergraduate programs and associate director of simulation for the
College of Nursing, attended with a group of student nurses. This event
emphasized the importance of grassroots outreach and the impact these
efforts can have on the legislative process. It was an opportunity for
MUSC nurses and nursing students to emphasize the importance of
implementing strategic long term solutions through additional funding
of CNNI strategies.
Friday, March 12, 2010
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