UTC School of Nursing Uses Federal Grants to Enhance Care to Medically-Underserved Populations

If a community is only as robust as the people and organizations who inhabit it, the Chattanooga area is poised to be one of the strongest with the likes of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing. A national model for metropolitan universities offering bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs, the UTC School of Nursing not only produces superior medical professionals, it also places an emphasis on helping the community’s most vulnerable inhabitants.

Over the past eight years, the UTC School of Nursing has received multiple federal grants totaling $6.9 million to focus specifically on rural clinical placements, providing essential healthcare and holistic education to the region’s most medically-underserved areas. These grants help place nursing students directly in these populations of need, resulting in more accessible care for community members, and stronger, more confident professionals as they are being thrown into working more complicated cases from the start.

In addition to enhancing rural partnerships, most of these grants provide scholarships to students to help them have low student debt in order to work with underserved populations directly upon degree completion. With Hamilton County and eight of the surrounding rural counties being federally classified as medically underserved, this immediate access to trained medical professionals is critical.

The direct community benefits from the UTC School of Nursing pipeline mean more than 71% of undergraduate nursing graduates and more than 83% of Family Nurse Practitioner graduates work in Chattanooga and the eight surrounding counties upon graduation.

“We are so grateful to all those who chose to enter the profession of nursing,” says Dr. Chris Smith, Director of the School of Nursing and Chief Health Affairs Officer at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. “From those at the bedside to those in the classroom, we are appreciative of the time given and dedication shown by all nurses who work to make sure patients and their families are well taken care of no matter what the challenges are that they may be facing.”

For more information about the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing and the services it provides, visit utc. edu.