Upstate Medical University awarded nearly $3M federal grant to train nurses for work in rural areas

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Upstate Medical University’s College of Nursing will use a four-year, $2.7 million grant to support students who are interested in working in rural or underserved areas after graduation.

The advanced nursing education workforce (ANEW) program of the Rockville, Maryland–based Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) awarded the funding.

HRSA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. HRSA’s goal in funding the grant is to increase the number of advanced-practice nurses trained as primary-care providers in rural and underserved areas.

The College of Nursing applied for the grant in early January and received notice that it was awarded in mid-June. Those who pursued the grant are now developing the scholarship application, obtaining equipment and developing curriculum. Upstate Medical expects to enroll the first students in the scholarship program in spring 2020.

Scholarship funding

The grant is about $670,000 per year and will provide scholarships to the equivalent of 16 full-time, family-nurse practitioner students, Upstate said in a Wednesday release. The annual number of students could exceed 16 as some scholarships may be awarded to part-time students. The $22,000 scholarships — pro-rated for part-time — can pay for tuition, books, or living expenses.

Students will be eligible to apply for the scholarship during their last year of nursing studies at Upstate’s College of Nursing. The student stipend will allow students to reduce the number of hours they need to work and focus additional time on their studies, Sherri McMullen, assistant professor in the College of Nursing, said. McMullen worked with colleagues in the College of Nursing to write the grant.

“This grant was looking for an academic center to partner with community organizations to provide access to primary care in rural and underserved areas,” said McMullen. “The College of Nursing is partnering with Upstate University Hospital and ConnextCare in Oswego County.”

Upstate’s news release also cites the HRSA grant description, which says, “The ANEW program supports academic clinical partnerships to educate and graduate primary-care nurse practitioners (NP), clinical nurse specialists (CNS) and nurse midwives (NM) who are academically and clinically prepared for the unique challenges of transitioning from nursing school to practice in rural and underserved communities, thereby increasing access to needed primary medical care for these populations.”

Rural, “underserved”

McMullen said an initial area of focus for the program and its scholarships will be rural areas to the north of Syracuse, which consist of populations in need of more primary-care providers. The grant will focus on recruiting nurse-practitioner students from Oswego County as these students will be more likely to continue working in this setting after graduation, she said. This program will improve access to primary care by recruiting more nurse-practitioner students to this rural area.

The grant will also establish a primary-care clinic in the vicinity of Upstate’s downtown campus for the “underserved” population in Syracuse, McMullen said. This will be a nurse-practitioner-led clinic and offer additional opportunity for student primary care clinical placements locally, she added.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com