Mississippi State University has opened the Magnolia State’s first direct-entry, accelerated Master of Science in Nursing program on its Meridian campus starting with the fall 2024 semester. The program prepares students who hold non-nursing bachelor’s degrees for the National Council Licensure Examination.
Students will complete 58 credit hours of coursework over 12 months; graduates are then eligible for the NCLEX-RN examination and licensure as a registered nurse.
“Research tells us that people that come to nursing after having lived experiences, perhaps in another field, are very focused, self-directed adults and they tend to stay in the workforce longer because they have more resilience,” Mississippi State University School of Nursing Dean Mary W. Stewart told the Mississippi Free Press on July 11. “… Our goal is to is to welcome those histories and those backgrounds and then build on those graduate-level competencies—such as systems thinking, quality and safety for patients, quality improvement—using evidence-based research to guide practice.”
Mississippi State’s nursing school is housed in downtown Meridian in the historic Rosenbaum Health Sciences Building. The Riley Foundation gave $6.1 million for renovations to the building which will feature a state-of-the-art interprofessional simulation program, six clinical exam rooms and six medical-surgical rooms to provide hands-on training. The school has high-fidelity simulation spaces, traditional practice areas and assessment labs on the first and second floors.
Learning Health Care Through Simulation
MSU is the only university in the state to offer an accredited simulation program. The simulation labs will use trained live actors in real-world scenarios. The program will also include computer learning stations, a proctor area and briefing rooms with recording and reviewing capabilities.
“I think it’s important we are using simulation, and we are fortunate because we’re using the best simulation,” Dean Stewart said. “At the same time in this accelerated MSN program, we are not substituting any of our clinical hours with simulation. I think that’s important because even the best simulation is not the same as putting your hands on a real patient and talking to a real patient.”
The school is situated in the heart of the city’s medical hub. Meridian boasts two major hospitals: Baptist Anderson Regional Medical Center and Oschner Rush Medical Center. The city also houses an acute-care psychiatric and substance-abuse treatment hospital and several specialty clinics.
“This is a program in which a tremendous amount of thought, preparation and work will cast a perpetual ripple effect in hospitals and health-care clinics across the state and beyond, positively affecting a measureless number of lives and families,” MSU-Meridian Head of Campus and Associate Vice President Terry Dale Cruse said in a press release on Feb. 15.
Stewart said local medical practices have agreed to provide clinical space and a local uniform company is fitting the faculty and students on-site for uniforms at a discounted price. The school has also created a community advisory board with clinical representatives and local business owners. That board has helped with interviewing students and developing the curriculum for the program.
“One of the convincing factors for me to accept the dean’s position was the level of community support,” Stewart said. “It’s really more than just verbal support, and it’s more than just the clinical agencies saying we need higher educated nurses. It’s the entire community. It’s the business owners, the restaurants and the people who do the uniforms. I mean, it’s like everyone has come together and said, ‘We know we need more nurses, and we need nurses that are prepared at a higher educational level.’”
Changing Rural Health-Care Narratives
Dean Stewart said the program is designed to help with nursing needs in rural areas. Data from the Mississippi State Board of Nurses shows that there were 54,160 registered nurses in the state in July. However, Stewart said that rural hospitals and some specialty areas are still hard to staff.
“We paid attention to what people were saying because we all know the health care needs in Mississippi,” she said. “We need to all be responsible for doing what we can to eliminate the disparities, particularly that some of our bigger groups in Mississippi have to face.”
There are several types of pre-licensure programs in the state. Aspiring nurses can enter an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree program to sit for the NCLEX exam. The University of Mississippi Medical Center also offers an accelerated Bachelor of Science program.
“There has been such a response from the nursing community to facilitate degree progression, to move qualified people into the practice area safely, but in a rigorous manner, and also as an accelerated way to get them into the nursing workforce,” Stewart told the Mississippi Free Press on July 22.
Some nurses across the state expressed concern about a fast-track nursing program but Stewart said that, although the degree is earned in a shorter time span, the training is just as rigorous. School officials looked at other accelerated master’s programs across the country to help set prerequisites and a plan of study. The dean said the coursework is very heavy in clinical direct patient care hours. Because the work is so intensive, students in the program are not able to work and must attend full-time.
The school currently employs six full-time faculty and two staff members. Three of the faculty are members of the prestigious American Academy of Nursing. The director of the simulation lab is a nationally recognized leader in the field of simulation and health care.
“This is a very rigorous plan of study,” Stewart said. “I think sometimes people get focused on (the fact) that it’s 12 months and (a program) certainly can’t prepare a nurse in 12 months because traditionally, that’s not the way it’s been done. But we have evidence that shows you can with the right students, the right faculty and the right program of study.”