Is nursing a science-based profession? To you, the answer to that question may seem stunningly obvious. Given the importance of nursing in such concepts as evidence-based care and critical thinking, to regard nursing as anything but a science seems misinformed at best.
And yet, nursing is blocked from accessing over $1 billion in funding because some parts of the federal government fail to designate nursing as a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) field. Classifying nursing as a STEM field will allow nursing “to access nearly $1.2 billion in funding initiatives around STEM initiatives that currently they’re locked out of,” said Rebecca Love, RN, MSN, FIEL, co-chair, Nursing is STEM Coalition, in an interview. “Overnight, if this happened, this could be the greatest support and windfall for the nursing profession we’ve seen in United States history.”
How it Began
The Nursing is STEM effort grew from the experience of Jason Garbarino, DNP, RN, GERO-BC, CNL, executive director/founder of the Nursing is STEM Coalition. As a professor, he learned that students applying to nursing school couldn’t access STEM funds. “It quickly became apparent that they could not qualify for the same kind of scholarships or access to grants or funding that other STEM professions or other Bachelor’s of Science students could,” according to Love, the author and editor of The Rebel Nurse Handbook.
But that wasn’t all. Garbarino also discovered that students who needed prerequisites to join an accelerated BSN program often were denied access to those prerequisites because priority was given to STEM classifications.
As a result, in 2023, Garbarino founded the Nursing is STEM Coalition. Love and Marion Leary, PhD, MPH, RN of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, joined the effort as co-chairs to help craft a letter and gain signatures. “Within about six weeks, we had over one thousand individuals and large organizations sign on and support this initiative,” said Love. The Coalition has formally requested in a petition that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) designate nursing as a STEM profession.
“The perception that nurses exclusively deliver direct patient care is an outdated, inaccurate representation of their broad knowledge base and professional skill sets,” the petition states. “Nurses are leaders in healthcare innovation and are increasingly present on interdisciplinary teams with computer scientists, biomedical engineers, and mathematicians. They are scientists, educators, policymakers/experts, researchers, ethicists, statisticians, system analysts, technological innovators, informaticists, and population health leaders.”
“People think that nurses just follow others’ orders, that we don’t think independently, or that we don’t have our scope of practice,” said Love. “Because nurses have been commoditized and invisible in our health systems for so long, people don’t know what nurses do.”
DHS and Others
Although several organizations own the STEM designation, the largest and most important one is DHS, according to Love. While the Department of Labor and the Department of Veterans Affairs recognize nursing as a STEM field, DHS and other agencies, such as the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education, omit nursing as a STEM field.
As a consequence, nursing research is funded at less of a percentage than STEM-designated disciplines, noted Love. While the Department of Education provides billions of dollars in scholarships, residencies, and grant programs for STEM-designated fields, almost all nurses have to fund their education 100% individually, with no large-scale federal grants or supporting programs to help.
This isn’t the first time an effort has been made to designate nursing as a STEM profession.
In 2016, Love explained that a group of nurses tried to do this with DHS, but the application was denied. “There seemed to be a poor understanding of nursing, what we did,” according to Love.
Waiting for a Decision
DHS is reviewing the formal application to designate nursing as a STEM field. A decision is expected by August, explained Love. Before the decision, the coalition and DHS may dialogue to answer any questions or concerns that they would have about this classification.
In the meantime, more efforts are being made. “We are doing a lot of work to reach out to our elected officials to say this is a workforce issue, and we need your support behind us,” said Love.
Moreover, individuals and groups can add their names to the petition, which currently carries signatures from organizations such as the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, and the American Health Care Association. “Every signature’s going to matter here, not only for the Department of Homeland Security but also we’re moving forward with submitting a letter to the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education,” said Love.
Time is Now
“If there was ever a time where we needed to stabilize and invest in the nursing workforce, the time is now,” said Love. Likely more than other STEM professions, “the pandemic shows that nursing uses science, technology, education, engineering and math every day.”
Now a freelance writer and editor, he served as a Director at Elsevier, where he was instrumental in the development of major online nursing reference and procedure products. Previously, he served as Editorial Director at Nurses.com, one of the first nursing websites, and was Executive Editor at Nursing magazine, a premier large-circulation journal.
Today, he continues to serve nurses and other clinicians by reporting on developments and trends in healthcare with meaning, context, and insight.
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