University of Tennessee, Baptist Memorial Health Care pilot OR Scholars program

Editor's Note

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s (UTHSC) College of Nursing announced a collaboration with Baptist Memorial Health Care to pilot an Operating Room Scholars program to address the perioperative nursing shortage on July 27.

“The program will fill a critical need and has the potential to create a new way of preparing nurses for areas with the most critical shortages. We hope it will also decrease the time new nursing graduates must spend in orientation or residency at hospitals and assist in the retention of perioperative nurses,” said UTHSC College of Nursing Dean Wendy Likes, PhD, DNSc, APRN-BC, FAANP.

The OR Scholars program is set to launch this summer with two students in the inaugural cohort. It is open to students in the college’s traditional four-semester BSN program. Students will complete PeriOp 101 modules and a minimum of three inter-professional simulations in perioperative environments.

Mary Ellen Sumrall, MSN, RN, chief nurse executive of Baptist Memorial Health Care and chief nursing officer for Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis said, “This pilot program in perioperative nursing could transform how we prepare undergraduate nurses for specialty areas.”