As Texas hospitals face a nursing shortage, Fort Worth students get ready to fill the gap
A new class of Fort Worth nursing students started classes Jan. 13, a first day of school that will also help address a statewide shortage of the critical profession.
Undergraduate nursing students started class at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. The group of 30 students are the school’s first and only on-campus class in the university’s brand new nursing school.
HSC’s new nursing school was created in part to respond to a statewide nursing shortage. During and in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals, nursing homes, and other health providers faced a staffing crisis, as nurses and other workers quit their jobs or retired after exhausting months or years on the front lines of the crisis. During the the height of the staffing crises, in 2022, three out of every four Texas hospitals reported inadequate staffing levels. Hospitals reported a median nurse vacancy rate of about 18%, meaning almost one in every five nursing positions was empty. Last year, the rate dropped to 8%, according to the Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies.
But long term, the the state health department still predicts a nursing shortage in Texas, particularly as Fort Worth’s population continues to grow rapidly and continues to age. By 2030, the department projects North Texas will be short 15,700 nurses compared to the demand demand.
In addition to the shortage, fewer nursing students are passing the national licensing exams and are able to go on to become nurses. In 2022, about 80% of U.S.-educated nursing candidates passed the exam, 8 percentage points lower than in 2019 and the lowest point in the last decade.
“What we’re seeing is when, when nurses graduate, their entry level competency continues to go down,” said Darla Gruben, who has helped to design and create HSC’s curriculum for its nursing students.
HSC’s goal, she said, is to graduate competent nurses who are ready to treat patients in a nursing residency program. There are about 250 nursing programs in the state, according to the center for nursing workforce studies.
Gruben came to HSC from Texas A&M School of Nursing with Dr. Cindy Weston, the founding dean of the nursing college, to design and create the nursing school. In addition to the nursing students who started Jan. 13, the college has two additional virtual programs that began classes last year, and a fourth program that will start in fall 2025.
Tobechi Duru, 19, decided to become a nurse after a firsthand experience with a patient. During a medical education program at his high school in Houston, Duru saw one patient who was suffering and more than a little grumpy when she first got to the hospital. Eventually, she started to open up to the nurses who were caring for her.
“After the nurses really talked to her, she calmed down,” he said.
The experience helped him realize that patients have their own lives and are going through a lot, he said. And he decided he wanted to be the person who could talk to someone and care for them during a difficult time.
Nursing student Sarah Pappoe, of Arlington, realized she wanted to care for other people when she was 5 years old. Her little sister got sick after a family trip to Ghana, and Pappoe wanted to be able to help her feel better.
“I remember just being by her side the whole time, wanting her to get better,” Pappoe, 22, said. “I couldn’t really do anything.”
In 20 months, Pappoe will have a bachelor of science in nursing. Then, she’ll be able to do something.
