Lincoln County Healthcare has created a unique way to stay ahead of the nursing shortage locally by teaming up with Central Maine Community College to offer Lincoln County’s first four-year degree program in nursing.
Cathy Cole Director of Education presented details of the new program to the Miles Memorial Hospital Advisory Committee Aug 22.
“An incredible amount of teamwork was required to make this happen,” Cole said. “I just happen to be steering the boat right now. A lot of high hopes, dreams, opportunity, and growth results in people that reach their dreams and greater economic development in our area.”
According to Cole, currently there is a nursing shortage. Within the next 10 years Miles will be losing almost 30 percent of its staff to retirement. Currently there are 600 people on waiting lists to get into nursing school.
There were no nursing schools in the area to meet the local need until now. According to Cole, it was Alan Davis who suggested the idea of opening a nursing school in Lincoln County eight years ago.
The new education center will be housed in the old Renys warehouse building on Chapman St. There is already a physician’s practice in that building. As part of the school there will be four classrooms, administrative offices, a computer lab and a patient lab. The Miles Memorial Hospital League provided money for dummies for the patient lab.
The classrooms are all equipped with modern technology, thanks to a CMCC distance- learning grant. The students in Damariscotta will view the teacher and class at the Lewiston Auburn campus on a 43-inch television, and participate in class long distance.
Eventually CMCC will be offering other classes, including business math, English, and psychology. They are also starting a clinical coding certificate program, to teach people coding for insurance reimbursement.
There will be involvement with the local high school as well, Cole said. Lincoln Academy students will be able to take classes at the facility.
This year’s enrollment is eight students for core nursing courses starting this fall. Next year that class will move on to the second year of the program and a new beginner class of eight will be added. The two-year program is at capacity with 16 students total. Cole said she expects that 50 percent of students will work locally after they finish the program.
This is a program for non-traditional students, offering growth opportunities to community members and employees. “This is for people who have dreams, who want to grow, who want to make more than baseline living wage,” said Cole. “It was created with CMCC to meet the need of people living in our community. This is an exciting opportunity for people here.”
In response to the new degree program, the Miles Board of Trustees created the Peggy Pinkham Scholarship Program, to give two people this year, and two people next year two-year scholarships.
The cost for the program is a little over $10,000 for both years, half what other colleges cost. Scholarship recipients will be required to work for Lincoln County Healthcare after they finish the program.
Emily Elliott on Maine Lincoln County News
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