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Nurse Refresher Courses Offered Through BMH
Registered nurses and licensed practical nurses with expired licenses can participate in a four-month refresher course online to reactivate their nursing licenses through the South Carolina Board of Nursing. The programs, which were developed by Greenville Tech, are the only refresher courses in the state recognized by the state board of nursing. And because the programs are primarily on the Internet, the nurses in the education department of Beaufort Memorial Hospital saw an opportunity to assist area nurses with inactive licenses in becoming active again. Similar programs for registered nurses exist in North Dakota and South Dakota.
"Knowing that the nursing shortage will not go away, I wanted to explore ways we could enlarge our pool of nurses locally," says Trish Deems, R.N. "I researched the program at Greenville Tech and contacted them."
Deems feels the attractiveness of the course is that it can be taken anywhere. Besides the 98 hours of class time on the Internet and in the laboratory, the course requires 80 hours of clinical contact in an acute care setting with a preceptor. "I saw no reason why we couldn’t offer the clinical time," says Deems. "After all, many of our nurses have served as preceptors for various courses offered at our local technical college. And the way the refresher courses were designed, people should be able to take them from just about anywhere, as long as they can find a place to do their clinical hours."
"What better way to address the nursing shortage than to ‘host’ students in your own hospital?" says BMH Vice President for Patient Care Services Karen Carroll, R.N. "They can get to know us and how we work, and, at the same time, we can get to know them."
As part of Beaufort Memorial’s commitment to this project, the hospital has arranged to reimburse nurses who take these courses in exchange for up to two years’ commitment to work for the hospital once their nursing licenses are reactivated. If a nurse chooses to go back to work full time, the commitment could be satisfied as quickly as one year. However, if he or she decides to work part time, they can satisfy their obligation over a two-year time period.
If a nurse isn’t sure about returning to work, he or she can call Beaufort Memorial’s education department to arrange to "shadow" a nurse for a day or two. Then they can decide whether they want to take the course. The contacts for more information on the two refresher courses or the shadowing are Joy Rivers, RN, MSN, at 522-5650 or Trish Deems, R.N., B.S.N., M.E.d., at 522-5026.
The classes began Jan. 7, and will be followed by classes in May and August. The RN refresher course has already been offered twice by Greenville Tech, with graduates from all over the state. The LPN refresher course was just approved by the state board of nursing in November, with the first class scheduled to run concurrently with the RN refresher course in January.
