Nursing program planned for Tulane Medical Center
Tulane University announced a new partnership with the Louisiana Children’s Medical Center in January which aims to spread comprehensive care throughout the New Orleans area and create more opportunities for clinical research.
At Tulane Medical Center, that includes a new nursing program.
Tulane Medical School Dean Lee Hamm worked closely with LCMC to bring about their new partnership and said adding a nursing program will help the nationwide need for nurses.
“Tulane is looking for appropriate ways to expand our educational offerings,” Hamm said.
“There is a national great need for more nurses. With both a medical school and our new affiliation, it seems like a natural motivation.”
— Lee Hamm, Dean of the Tulane Medical School
The Tulane Medical Center building will become a center for the nursing program, clinical research and outpatient care beginning in the fall of 2024. Most patient-related services will move from Tulane Medical Center to East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie and University Medical Center.
The nursing program will offer an accelerated bachelor’s in nursing — a fast-track degree option for people who have a bachelor’s degree in another field or who have already taken the prerequisites.
Tulane is working on hiring a new dean for the program before creating a curriculum and hiring faculty.
“From a higher educational perspective, I see this broadening Tulane and the spectrum of what we are engaged in,” Hamm said. “From a medical school perspective, I see it as deepening our educational efforts in another profession.”
“We’ve been talking to LCMC for some time,” President Mike Fitts said in a December interview. “We have a shared vision of healthcare where we’re both a community and an academic system, and we thought bringing them together would be good for both healthcare in New Orleans and in Louisiana, and good for our residents and medical students.”
Hamm said some clinics will remain in Tulane Medical Center to serve patients that are currently undergoing treatments there.
“We anticipate that some things like classrooms or simulations will occur downtown,” Hamm said. “Clinical rotations where a nursing student is in a hospital or in a clinic may happen at a variety of locations throughout the metropolitan area.”
