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UNM is working to improve veterans’ welfare on campus and in New Mexico.
The University’s College of Nursing has been selected as one of six colleges to help train nurses to care for veterans via the Veterans Affairs Nursing Academic Partnership. UNM received a grant of $5 million from the Department of Veterans Affairs last week.
The grant will help UNM and the VA to recruit undergraduate nurses and hire new faculty. It means to support hiring and teaching 96 new nurses.
Nancy Morton, undergraduate program director at the college and co-director for the program, said the grant will help the college meet the needs of veterans in the state. She said veterans comprise at least 20 percent of New Mexico’s population.
“Health access for all of our rural residents here in the state is a huge problem,” Morton said. “We have continued to improve health access to our rural New Mexicans, and a lot of those rural New Mexicans are veterans.”
Morton said she expects the program to advance care for veterans statewide by preparing nurses for future health care relief. The grant will support the partnership for five years, she said.
“It will help us to increase the veterans’ needs into the nursing curriculum in order to prepare nurses to care for veterans,” she said. “A cohort of students will be doing most of their clinical (work) at the VA, so that will mean that there will be many more students who have learned nursing care needs in the most direct way with veterans and their families.”
Students’ experiences working for the VA could also provide them with jobs after graduation, Morton said.
“What we’ve done so far is we have offered nursing students this opportunity,” Morton said. “Ultimately the idea is to recruit those who graduate into the VA system.”
Marilyn Dykman, director of UNM’s Veterans Resource Center, said the partnership between the College of Nursing and the VA will help people understand that veterans can help the public outside of the military.
“We bring a lot of technical training,” Dykman said. “Being able to have a grant like that really taps into that experience. For example, we have certain veterans that were medics in the military, and they have all of that wonderful experience.”
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Dykman served in the military for 20 years. She said that when veterans pursue higher education, they can share their work skills with their communities. She said the public needs to take this into consideration when looking at veterans.
“When looking at a veteran, I think the media addresses things that are more deterring to the veteran when they forget to think about what technical skills, experience, and leadership these veterans bring not only to UNM, but as economic growth after they finish a degree here at UNM,” Dykman said.
Morton said recruiting nurses has been successful in the past. She said there are future projects scheduled as part of the program.
“At this point in time we’re just trying to get our faculty on board,” Morton said. “I think that our veterans system has a lot that nursing students can learn from.”
