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The baccalaureate graduate nurse collaborates with other members

of the health team by planning, defining, implementing, and evaluating the total health plan. The nurses' role is primarily that of advocate, assisting the individual on a one-to-one basis to do that which he cannot do for himself. More than any other member of the team, she strives to unify and personalize the care of each patient through coordination of all levels of workers and specialists involved in care. It is the nurses who, by being with the patient over the longest period of time, help the individual and his family achieve and maintain healthy patterns of living.

Within the Department of Nursing: As a University Department of Nursing offering three programs in nursing undergraduate, graduate, and continuing nursing education - we serve many categories of students. Through the undergraduate program, high school graduates, college transfer students, and graduates from junior college and hospital schools of nursing pursue a baccalaureate degree. Through the graduate program, the nurse who aspires to be a specialist, a teacher, or a supervisor is prepared. The needs of at least 400 registered nurses employed or seeking employment in the Saint Louis area are met annually through the Continuing Nursing Education Program sponsored jointly by the adult .education college of the University, Metropolitan College, and the Department of Nursing.

Such a large department offering educational opportunities for so many students and registered nurses requires faculty who are educated at the master's and doctoral levels. It demands that faculty be scholars, researchers, and skilled practitioners of nursing. We do not need more and new categories of nurses; we need to maintain that which is in operation. Needed first of all are funds, direct grants to our well

established institutions to be used with discretion to hire qualified

faculty.

The

Fifty per cent of the students enrolled in the undergraduate program are from Missouri; the other fifty per cent from out of the State matriculate because of the faculty, curriculum, and because of the recognition given the transfer student for past achievement. fifteen students from the Collegiate Assistance Program receive free tutoring by faculty. Many Black students, compassionate health workers, find a place in our flexible, individually tailored program. Financial assistance in the form of Public Health, Mental Health, and Professional Nurse Traineeships provided 82 students with approximately $300,000 last year. The cut in funds to half this year has caused some students to drop school, others to be limited to part time study, some not to start graduate study. Seventy-five per cent of our students work; increasing hours of work would only further jeopardize academic standing. Needed, then, is scholarship money to be awarded through the School to deserving, serious students.

Loans are helpful, but free

scholarship money is a better incentive with the loan sustaining.

Our graduate program is the only one in Saint Louis, the only one in the State of Missouri besides the very small one located in the central area of the State. Saint Louis University is the chief source of teachers for all of the thirty-two schools of nursing in Missouri, for supervisors and directors of nurses for the 168 hospitals in Missouri, and the chief supplier of expert nurse practitioners for such units as coronary care. We expect to graduate 30 with Master of Science degrees this year, and there must be at least 300 positions open. Several times a day we are contacted by administrators within and without the State for names of our graduates to fill positions in

education, service, or research.

We must expand in number and kind of major offered. We must double enrollment and offer majors in areas in which shortage is very great in the Midwest, such as community health and mental health. Creative planning and implementation of new programs requires funds.

Strengths within the Community: We enjoy remarkable relationships and place students for clinical experience in fifteen different community health agencies including hospitals within the City and County. The community is the laboratory for applying nursing learned at the hub, the Medical Center, where standards are set, new theories are tried, learning is paramount. Exposure to so many agencies impresses upon the mind of the student the great health needs of many people; it motivates her to a permanent commitment to alleviate suffering and promote health.

Our School of Nursing and Allied Health Professions has been doing something about its responsibility to the health professional in the community in its continuing education programs in nursing and in medical technology. Each year we offer a dozen long term courses and several workshops servicing about 400 nurses and 200 medical technologists from the Saint Louis and surrounding area. This year Saint Louis University is being funded to establish a regional continuing education plan over a nine state area. Program, we plan to offer courses for the preparation of coronary care nurses. With no extra funding our departmental faculty have given of their time and effort to this continuing education endeavor as their service to the community. To continue, outside financing is needed to help us become that continuing health education center that we must become for Saint Louis, for Missouri, and for the region.

Collaborating with the Regional Medical

Federal Support Needed

Having outlined the needs for our Department of Nursing, I would

like to generalize about ways the Federal Government could help bacca

laureate and graduate nursing education. The Federal Government can

help most by awarding funds:

1.

Unrestricted grants to flourishing schools so that they may

continue to educate baccalaureate and graduate students to serve the sick and disadvantaged of America;

2. More direct scholarship money to students beginning collegiate programs in nursing and continued scholarship support to graduate students preparing as nurse clinicians, teachers, and administrators; 3. Give financial support to continuing education centers that have a record and potential for offering long and short term courses for nurses on the job and for those indicating a desire to return to nurs

ing;

4.

Continue funds for building and renovation.

Senator EAGLETON. Who desires to go next?

STATEMENT OF CHARLES E. BERRY, A.B., M.Sc. H.A., J.D., ASSOCIATE DEAN, SCHOOL OF NURSING AND ALLIED HEALTH PROFESSIONS, ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY

Dr. BERRY. I probably should follow Sister, Senator.

Thank you for inviting me to testify. I am going to address myself to the charge of allied health professionals, and I want to summarize in about 3 minutes the written testimony without, hopefully, deleting any of the contents.

First of all, I think that health careers must be made acceptable. I think medicine must be made more attractive to women, it has been in other countries; and nursing and the allied fields made more attractive to men. Stabilization of our health manpower pool requires an active program to eradicate the popular conception that medicine is for men, and all other areas of health are poorly compensated women's work.

I think one of the problems of the Government-sponsored programs in recruiting servicemen for the health professions is this image, that the allied health services are women's work, and I have been told that by prospective students.

Assuming that the health professions are somewhat different than that of the physician, I think we can make educational opportunities accessible to many more than we do at the present time. It has been indicated today that shortages of competent personnel are most acute in the rural areas or distressed areas. Í feel an aggressive recruitment of students who have grown up in a rural environment should result in an increased percentage of graduates returning to a rural setting. I hold this opinion despite some evidence that physicians tend to remain in urban areas.

To accomplish this, more adequate support in the form of traineeships must be made available. Such traineeships should provide for all costs, including travel, tuition, housing, and maintenance. I think the availability of such aid will be an attractive incentive for service, particularly to youths from rural or distressed areas. I think also their high school counselors must be thoroughly oriented to these programs and the career opportunities existing in the health field. Traineeships must be made available to the high school graduate who wishes to complete 4 or more years at a college or university awarding a baccalaureate degree or higher degree, whose potential is that of educator, administrator, researcher, or highly skilled technologist in one of the emerging health specialties. This is particularly important in areas that do not have a good junior college system.

The rationale for restricting such aid to those already committed to the field is understandable, in other words, traineeships limited to juniors and seniors, but such a policy excludes or eliminates a large number of capable and interested high school graduates who just don't have the funds to get started and consequently drift into other areas of employment. Proper safeguards in the form of screening techniques and grade requirements could be formulated to insure against abuse or waste of Government funds.

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