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Lauren is doubled over in pain, gripping the kitchen counter. She can barely walk or talk, but just an hour ago, she was making a sandwich for her three-year-old daughter’s lunch. She realized she felt a little off and decided to lie down for a while. Lauren is 35 weeks pregnant, but she didn’t think she was in labor. Now, she’s sure.  

She lives in a small rural township, and there is no hospital that delivers babies in the county.  The last one closed its maternity ward two years ago, and since then, she’s had to travel 45 minutes to receive prenatal care.  

The contractions intensify, growing closer together. Lauren is terrified. The hospital where she is supposed to deliver is an hour away. She already called her husband, who is racing home from work, but what if they don’t make it in time? If she delivers at a closer hospital, will the staff there be equipped to care for a baby born this early? What if she or the baby experience complications or go into distress?

While the story above is fictional, the negative impact of maternity deserts is a reality for millions of Americans. Typically found in rural, low-income communities, healthcare deserts are defined by a lack of access to qualified providers who specialize in caring for pregnant women. Maternal deserts like the one described above affect obstetric and prenatal care, while pediatric deserts leave families without access to providers who specialize in caring for children.

According to the National Institutes of Health, approximately 36% of all counties in the U.S. qualify as maternal care deserts. In fact, Portage County, the county in which 51�Թ���’s Kent Campus is located, is considered a maternity care desert following the closure of the labor and delivery center at UH Portage Medical Center in Ravenna, Ohio.  

Other healthcare deserts, including pediatric care, also exist. Defined by a lack of access to care, these deserts are often the result of shortages of qualified providers. National projections show a current nursing shortage of 8% in the U.S. with the potential to rise to 10% by 2027. Though expected to decrease eventually, a nursing shortage is forecasted to persist to some degree, translating to higher patient-to-nurse ratios, longer wait times, increased burnout among staff and potential risks to patient safety and quality of care.  

The College of Nursing at 51�Թ��� addresses both the issue of nursing shortages and lack of maternal and pediatric care in the region. The college is growing both its Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner program and Family Nurse Practitioner program, bringing more qualified healthcare professionals into the workforce to meet the specific needs of communities. Undergraduates are also seeing increased pediatric and maternity simulation training to bolster their skills for these specific patient populations.     

A Nursing Program of Great Distinction  

Founded in 1967, the College of Nursing at 51�Թ��� has a distinguished legacy of preparing highly competent nurses through a strong commitment to clinical excellence, interdisciplinary collaboration, innovative practice and meaningful community impact. It is one of the largest and most comprehensive nursing programs in the nation with more than 22,800 alumni worldwide. The BSN nursing program is at five campuses and provides courses of study at the baccalaureate, master’s and doctoral levels for more than 2,050 nursing students.

The College of Nursing  consistently ranks among the top nursing schools nationwide and is a top-ranked public institution in northern Ohio. Its Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) is frequently ranked in the top 65 programs nationally by U.S. News & World Report, while the college maintains high NCLEX pass rates with an average 92%, which is above the national average.    

Students can complete a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the Kent, Geauga, Salem, Stark and Trumbull campuses. The college also partners with associate degree programs at the Regional Campuses, offering a path into the 100% online RN-to-BSN program, as well as the graduate programs.

Having these educational opportunities throughout Northeast Ohio translates to more healthcare professionals being able to care for family, friends and neighbors in their own communities. 

Enrolling Nurses from All Backgrounds  

To address the current and future nursing shortages our communities are facing, 51�Թ��� is launching the Foundational Entry Concentration in the fall of 2026. This program will make the pathway to a nursing degree accessible for more students, affording them the opportunity to complete STEM prerequisites while enrolled in the nursing program. Through this innovative approach, high school students from any educational background can still pursue a nursing degree, even if they didn’t have access to certain mathematics, biology and chemistry courses before coming to 51�Թ���.  

“The Foundational Entry Concentration embodies our belief that nursing talent exists in all communities,” said Versie Johnson-Mallard, Ph.D., Henderson Memorial Endowed Leadership Chair and dean of 51�Թ���’s College of Nursing. “By offering a marathon rather than a sprint approach to meeting nursing prerequisites, we’re ensuring that more students can achieve their dreams of becoming safe, competent nurses at the bedside while maintaining a strong four- to four-and-a-half-year graduation timeline.”  

In the 2025-26 academic year, the College of Nursing saw 9.8% increase in enrollment. Nursing was also the No. 1 major among first-year students, which is a consistent statistic for the program. With the Foundational Entry Concentration, 51�Թ��� expects to add another 125 first-year nursing students to its enrollment over the next four years.  

The Foundational Entry Concentration preserves the College of Nursing’s rigorous academic standards, ensuring students still obtain the critical STEM foundation they need to be competent nurses, but it provides them more time to complete those classes. Rather than cramming all STEM courses into their first year, students have two years to complete them. This extended approach provides a timeline that may be more manageable, possibly preventing students from dropping out, and only adds one semester to their overall academic journey.  

Leveraging Technology for Better Care  

The college has long used simulation to replicate the clinical environment and create a safe space for students to practice their knowledge and skills on manikins. Often referred to as sim labs, these areas exist at several of the university’s eight campuses, including Kent, Geauga, Salem, Stark and Trumbull, and they are particularly helpful for practicing interprofessional skills and communications. Each year, there are more than 7,000 student visits to sim labs across the university system.  

As the educational landscape shifts in response to artificial intelligence (AI), the college is finding innovative ways to harness that technology for educational purposes. It recently introduced a first-of-its-kind AI-powered virtual reality (VR) simulation that standardizes clinical practice and provides students with individualized feedback on their performance. Traditional simulation models often have one student providing care while others watch, but through VR headsets, every student can be fully immersed in an environment where they interact in real-time with virtual patients and physicians.

Though currently limited to a grant-funded LPN-BSN cohort on the Kent Campus, the College of Nursing plans to integrate VR throughout its curriculum. The technology teaches students how to check for vital signs, update electronic health records and consult with other care providers. If they miss critical details or fail to maintain eye contact during patient communication, the system responds authentically, just as a real patient would.

“This is the first time students are really getting to perform simulation in a virtual setting,” said Janet Reed, Ph.D., RN, CMSRN, an assistant professor in the college. “It standardizes the experience and allows them to get individual feedback. Normally with simulation, students do not receive very specific individual feedback from their instructor, and oftentimes many students are standing around observing and not actively participating.”

Immersion and VR faculty training is led by Reed, nurse researcher in virtual reality, and Jeremy Jarzembak, Ph.D., nurse scientist in mixed reality simulation. There are plans to introduce virtual patient visits, remote assessments and diagnosis in the graduate level curriculum in the 2027-28 academic year.  

Though powerfully life-like, simulation is just that – a hypothetical situation. Because of that, students can train for high-pressure scenarios they may not experience during their clinical rotations, including sepsis, anaphylaxis and medication errors. This additional level of practice fosters competency and confidence, preparing students to bring value and contribute to any situation they encounter from their first day on the floor.  

The college plans to continue training and developing additional AI analytics to implement interprofessional scenarios more consistently in the near future.  

Cultivating Compassion Through Human Interaction  

Clinicals offer nursing students an environment to hone their skills through real-world application with human patients. Students interact throughout healthcare systems in Northeast Ohio, rotating between specialties including medical-surgical, intensive care unit, emergency room, labor and delivery, mental/behavioral health, oncology, geriatrics/long-term care, operating room, community health/home health and pediatrics.  

“One of the things that makes 51�Թ���’s program in nursing so special is that you have the opportunity to do clinical rotations at many strong healthcare agencies throughout Ohio,” said Lisa Aurilio, ’87, MSN ’99, MBA ’11, chief operating officer at Akron Children’s and adjunct faculty in 51�Թ���’s College of Nursing. “You get to see how nursing is done in all different practice settings. I felt it was a really great way to have a strong foundation as I started my career.”  

Patients in different medical circumstances or stages of life may require different approaches to their care. Training in a wide variety of environments better prepares nursing students to excel regardless of the situation they encounter – and it also allows them to determine what kind of care they are most passionate about.  

“The Ohio Board of Nursing has said that pediatric nursing as part of a curriculum doesn’t necessarily have to be done in a clinical setting – it can be done through simulation,” Aurilio said. “51�Թ��� has made the choice to continue to pursue hands-on experience with pediatric patients, and that really sets 51�Թ��� apart from some other nursing programs. It’s a way to ensure we’re really cultivating the best pediatric caregivers of the future.”  

Through strong partnerships with more than 750 hospitals, clinics and extended-care facilities, 51�Թ��� collaborates at the forefront of cutting-edge healthcare research and clinical practice, while helping students acquire valuable clinical experience that prepares them as future nurse leaders. These partnerships also provide educational opportunities beyond clinical rotations, including community needs assessments for undergraduates and quality improvement projects for graduate students. They also ensure graduates are well prepared to deliver high-quality care in complex and rapidly evolving clinical environments while meeting the diverse health needs of the communities they serve.

51�Թ��� at Salem takes this exposure a step further by offering nursing students throughout the university a study-away opportunity at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. There, students immerse themselves in the reservation and Lakota culture, experiencing the community’s unique health challenges, many of which are exacerbated by lack of access to transportation, healthy food, water, heat and electricity.    

“This trip exposed me to so many things I had never seen before,” said Clayton Poteet, ’18, who was a junior nursing student when he made the trip to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. “This trip changed my life. There is little to no preventative care. We saw many people with conditions that started as something minor but turned into serious situations simply because they couldn’t get care early on.” 

Innovative Training Spaces for Nursing Education  

In recent years, many of the Regional Campuses have upgraded their nursing facilities to provide students with a learning environment that features state-of-the-art resources. Now Henderson Hall, the heart of nursing education on the Kent Campus, is also undergoing a multi-phased renovation.  

The process began in 2025 with the goal of creating modern, dedicated nursing spaces equipped with advanced technology and innovative teaching labs. These enhancements allow students to train in environments that closely model real-world clinical settings, strengthening their skills, confidence and readiness to provide high-quality patient care in their communities. The renovated spaces will feature an extended state-of-the-art simulation center, enabling the college to admit and educate more nursing students at a ratio supported by the Ohio Board of Nursing.  

The college also plans to collaborate with other academic units that use simulation for their training, including podiatric medicine and aeronautics, to align resources and avoid duplication.  

Better Care for a Brighter Future

Lauren's story may be fictional, but families like hers live in communities across the country. When specialized care is hours away, sudden illnesses or chronic conditions can quickly become a crisis. Closing those gaps requires nurses who are both highly skilled and deeply compassionate.  

51�Թ���’s College of Nursing is preparing those kinds of nurses every day by embracing innovation while preserving the human connection at the heart of care. Advanced simulation, emerging AI-powered learning tools and immersive virtual environments allow students to access all the best technology has to offer – individualized feedback, practicing for medical emergencies in a safe environment and more. At the same time, hands-on clinical experiences ensure they develop the empathy, communication and judgment essential to patient care.

As these initiatives expand, the college is also strengthening philanthropic partnerships to support students and scale these innovations.

For expectant parents like Lauren and their babies, the impact a 51�Թ��� nurse can have is simple yet profound: skilled caregivers closer to home, ready to meet patients with both expertise and compassion.