STEPPING STONE FOR NURSES; LPN PROGRAM CAN HELP ACHIEVE GOALS

The School of Practical Nursing at the Cape Girardeau Vocational-Technical School helps people take their first steps into the field of nursing.

Nursing school Coordinator Carol Kranawetter said the school offers an accredited one-year program that trains its students in classroom and clinical settings to become licensed practical nurses. But many students who attend the school want to become professional nurses, she said.

"That's their long-term goal is to become a professional nurse and they start here with us. I'm proud of that that we're the stepping stone that many people choose to go on to continue their nursing education," Kranawetter said. Still others, she said, have always just wanted to become a licensed practical nurse.

Each year in June the school, at 301 North Clark, accepts 25 students, said Kranawetter. So far the school has graduated 17 classes.

Kranawetter said the school's 52-week, five-day-a-week program starts in October, with graduation taking place in September. The students take their licensing exams Oct. 21, she said.

Students attend the school from a large area that includes Perry, Cape and Scott counties and Southern Illinois, said Kranawetter. She said one student made a round trip of three hours to attend class.

Kranawetter said she believes people come to the school first to get into nursing because of both money concerns and the short time that it takes to train there to become a licensed practical nurse. Many people, she said, can't afford to go through a two- or four-year nursing program.

With items like textbooks and liability insurance included, the cost to attend the school is just more than $3,000, said Kranawetter.

Students who graduate from the program can work and make some money before going back to school, she said. A lot of times, she said, the hospitals that employ the school's graduates will support them in their education to become a registered nurse, such as with tuition reimbursements or financial loan programs.

The vocational nursing school program is very structured, Kranawetter said, and gives support to a person who doesn't have a strong educational background. The students, she said, know what's expected of them.

"School might be a very challenging thing for them to come back to for a year," said Kranawetter. "The instructor knows them very well. By being successful here, they get the confidence of going on and continuing their education."

Kranawetter said the school also offers a seven-week certified nurse assistance program. The course is a good way for students to see if nursing is really the profession they want to get into, she said. The basic nursing skills are taught and hands-on care is provided in a nursing home under the supervision of a registered nurse.

When ready, a licensed practical nurse can make the jump to registered nurse at the Southeast Missouri Hospital School of Nursing at 2851 Professional Court.

The school offers an accelerated 48-week program that allows people to become eligible to take the required test to become a registered nurse, said the school's director, Sandy Buchheit. A university-based program can span either two or four years, she said. The cost to attend the school is $7,000.

Buchheit said the hospital's original school of nursing was open in the 1920s and 1930s. The school reopened last year, with classes starting in August, she said, and will graduate its first class in July. The school is approved for 30 students, but started this year with half that.

"The students like to say that we're hard, but we're fair," Buchheit said. "I don't know exactly what that means. There's a lot of clinical, there's a lot of theory involved.

"But they also feel that since it's an accelerated program" it's worth it. "They feel that a one-year investment of hard work is a much better option for them," she said.

For people who want a university nursing education, there's Southeast Missouri State University.

The chairman of the College of Health and Human Services' Department of Nursing, Catherine Taylor Foster, said the school has two nursing programs: an associate degree program and a baccalaureate program.

Combined, she said, the two programs have just over 200 students. Each year 50 students are accepted into the baccalaureate program and 40 are accepted into the associate program, said Foster, who started her position in August after working as senior staff specialist for education and research at the American Nurses Association in Kansas City.

The department also offers an outreach program at Three Rivers Community College at Poplar Bluff, Foster said, and the university has submitted a proposal with the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education for a master's in nursing program. "We're hoping that it will be approved," Foster said, "but we don't know" when.

Thirty-five agencies in Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area are used for the university students' clinical nursing practice, Foster said, including areas in Southern Illinois.

One trend the department is seeing, she said, is that more male students are entering the program. About 8 to 10 percent in both programs are males.

"The national average used to be about 2 percent, but we find nationally it's going up too." Foster said the average was 2 percent three or four years ago.

Foster acknowledged nursing is a popular field right now. "Some of the people we get are changing careers," she said, "or are people whose families have grown up and they always wanted to be a nurse and now they have a chance to go to school."

One reason nursing is popular is that nurses are mobile, said Foster. "They can go anywhere across the country and work as long as they can apply for a license in their state."

Buchheit said she thought nursing has become more popular because the media have emphasized a nursing shortage. That, she said, has made the public more aware of nursing and the chance it offers for employment and advancement.

People's perception of nursing has changed too, she said.

"Nursing has progressed a long way from professional nurses being construed as just making beds, emptying bed pans and following doctors around. I think that people have realized that nursing is a real exciting and" challenging profession.