Our Katie Gibas tells us about the growing need for nursing professors, in this edition of Healthy Living.

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Ann Sedore is the Director of the Crouse Hospital College of Nursing. One of her biggest challenges is finding people qualified to teach nurses-to-be.

"I have two that are retiring at the end of this year. I have two that are retiring at the end of the following year. And so, more and more of our faculty are also aging," said Sedore.

One challenge to filling these positions is the educational requirements. Crouse graduates nurses with associate degrees, which means they need professors with masters degrees. But, New York and several other states are considering requiring all nurses to obtain bachelor's degrees within ten years of graduating from their associate program, which means professors need to have even higher education.

"For baccalaureate programs and master programs, they need doctorally prepared faculty. So the doctorally prepared numbers are relatively small that are graduating annually. And so they are faced with an even bigger problem than we are," explained Sedore.

But, there's an even simpler challenge to hiring nursing professors.

"Across the country, nurses don't want to go into education because they can earn more in a hospital position or in healthcare as an administrator or something like that. So, that will be the next challenge to pay enough to get them to come to this area," added Sedore.

Experts said at this point, the shortage is manageable and there are a number of incentives in place to help nurses get higher education and become professors.

"We hire people who are in masters programs and they work part time for us and we pay their tuition in their masters program. And we coach and mentor them for two years while they're getting their masters degree and teach them all the ins and outs of real teaching,
said Sedore. "They teach in the classroom. They teach clinical. They have a mentor who works with them all the time and then when they're graduated, we guarantee that they will have full time positions."

Right now, Crouse graduates between 85 and 92 nurses every year. They have at least twice as many applicants. With more professors, they said they could better address both the educator shortage and overall nursing shortage.