| Thursday, July 10, 2008: 1:15 PM-2:30 PM | |||
| Educating Racial/Ethnic Minorities for the Nursing Workforce | |||
| Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to discuss the importance of a racially and ethnically diverse nursing workforce. | |||
| Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to formulate successful strategies to enhance recruitment and graduation of underrepresented minority nursing students. | |||
| Over two million in number, nurses in the United States constitute the largest group of providers in the healthcare workforce. At the same time, the nursing workforce has remained predominately white and female, while the nation’s population has become increasingly diverse. Racial and ethnic minorities are among the fastest growing population group in the United States. Projections show that by the year 2030, racial minorities will constitute over 30 percent of the US population. This increase in the racial/ethnic diversity of the US population calls for an equally diverse healthcare workforce. However, only about nine percent of nurses are from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds. This symposium presents data from two federally funded, workforce diversity programs that describe successful recruitment and graduation strategies employed to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in nursing education and practice. The importance of a diverse nursing workforce in reducing health disparities and increasing the quality of life in communities is also addressed. A well-prepared, diverse nursing workforce is consistent with the national initiative, Healthy People 2010, and is an investment in the healthcare system of the future both in the United States and worldwide. | |||
| Symposium Organizer: | Veronica G. Parker, PhD | ||
| Symposium Presenters: | Veronica G. Parker, PhD Barbara N. Logan, PhD, RN, FAAN Cynthia E. Degazon, PhD, RN | ||
| Diversity and the Nursing Workforce Veronica G. Parker, PhD, Barbara N. Logan, PhD, RN, FAAN | |||
| International, multi-ethnic high school students' perception of nursing as a career choice Cynthia E. Degazon, PhD, RN, Holly F. Shaw, PhD, RN, M. Ben Natan, RN, Mally Ehrenfeld, PhD, RN | |||
| Enhancing Students' Successful Transition from the Pre-nursing to Nursing Curriculum: Lessons Learned from the ACUMEN Workforce Diversity Program Barbara N. Logan, PhD, RN, FAAN, Veronica G. Parker, PhD | |||