For immediate release: Feb. 6, 2006

GALVESTON, Texas — The School of Nursing at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston launched its master’s degree program in Nursing Leadership in Complex Healthcare Organizations this fall. The M.S.N. program prepares innovative nurse leaders for the 21st century. The response from nurses has been enthusiastic. According to Jean Sorrells-Jones, director of the program, “we were flooded with applications shortly after we announced the program.”

Sorrells-Jones says the new graduate program is in response to the leadership needs of health care organizations, and reflects trends in place in other industries. “Many health care organizations now require their middle-managers to be master’s-prepared, with an M.S.N., M.H.A. or M.B.A. Nurses with a career goal of middle or executive management practice in health services organizations or educational organizations are seeking strong programs to prepare themselves for the future.”

The mostly Web-based program allows busy nurses to complete their graduate studies from anywhere in the world. The Web curriculum is augmented by occasional on-campus visits to UTMB or gatherings via the Internet. “We expect that most of the master’s students in this program will be working; many will have full-time management positions which have some flexibility but also heavy responsibility. We designed the program to be taken part time and mostly online, to accommodate their work schedules and their lives.”

She notes that most graduate students work full time and attend class part time. “With the economy, funding and just general lifestyle, there are relatively few graduate students who are full-time students with no work responsibilities,” she said.

The program totals 39 credit hours. It can be completed in one year of full-time study or two years of part-time study.

This program has a broad nursing and healthcare leadership focus, and assumes that students will have prerequisite understandings of some management functions, including basic performance evaluation, budget monitoring and staff deployment/scheduling.

For more information, please contact Sorrells-Jones at (409) 772-4874, jsjones@utmb.edu or the School of Nursing Web site at www.son.utmb.edu.
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
UTMB Media Hotline (409) 772-NEWS
John Koloen: (409) 772-8790 jskoloen@utmb.edu