Tennessee has a vital demand for nurses, which the University of Tennessee at Knoxville is addressing through a newly established accelerated nursing program that includes a school-to-work pipeline for UT Medical Center.
The inaugural class graduated Dec. 13. Each graduating nurse in the class of 40 received three-year contracts with the hospital. Next year, the BSN Scholars Program should graduate 64 students, with an end goal of graduating 100 nurses annually.
The Tennessee Hospital Association projects the statewide gap of registered nurses to be at 8,500 by 2035.