University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Nursing Partners With Clinic To Address Rural Healthcare Shortage

The University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Nursing has partnered with the Monroe Clinic-SSM Health to offer rural placements for nursing students to help address rural healthcare shortages.

Students earning their doctorate of nursing practice (DNP) degree require field placements to meet their degree requirements and to help positively influence their employment after graduating.

Pamela Ann McGranahan, director of the DNP program and associate clinical professor of nursing, tells news.wisc.edu, “To help meet our goal of educating nurses for the entire state, the School of Nursing is emphasizing relationships like the one with Monroe. Some of our students really respond to a well-run clinic that is large enough to offer a fairly intricate level of specialties and technology, but not so large as to become anonymous.”

Monroe Clinic operates 11 clinics in Wisconsin and Illinois, with more than 85 physicians, over 200,000 annual patient visits, and 40 to 50 advanced practice practitioners, primarily nurses. In four years offering clinical placements to UW–Madison DNP students, three have returned to work there as nurse practitioners.

UW–Madison offers DNP degrees to nurses who hold a bachelor’s or masters degree in nursing with one year of working experience. The coursework can be completed in-person and online and prepares nurses to use advanced clinical expertise, advocacy, leadership skills, and research understandings to provide up-to-date practices and best clinical outcomes.

To learn more about the UW–Madison School of Nursing’s partnership with the Monroe Clinic-SSM Health to offer rural placements for nursing students to help address rural healthcare shortages, visit here.