‘We Have To Teach Them’: How OU Is Facing Oklahoma’s Nursing Shortage

Nearly every county in Oklahoma is in need of nurses. The University of Oklahoma received a pair of grants to bring more people to the profession. OU College of Nursing leaders say the solution starts in the classroom.  

“The work is hard,” said Dr. Melissa Craft, Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs at OU’s College of Nursing. “It’s not an easy thing.”

Craft knows Oklahoma needs more nurses, especially in rural Oklahoma. 

“The nursing shortage is felt more [in Oklahoma],” Craft said.  

According to the Department of Health, more than half of the population in Oklahoma lives in a primary care professional shortage area affecting close to every county. 

Craft said filling these positions is hard because of the skills needed, and it takes university faculty to teach important disciplines. Teaching at the college level requires advanced degrees, more school and a tremendous cost.   

“For many people that is the barrier to going back to school,” Craft said. 

OU received two grants totaling nearly $3 million to alleviate that barrier.  

“That’s the way we’re gonna build the workforce,” Craft said. 

Craft and Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Amy Costner-Lark, also practice medicine while they teach.   

“In order to teach something well, you have to learn it well,” Craft said. 

Long careers, Costner-Lark said, are built when a person knows their purpose.   

“Sustaining it is easy, I think, whenever you connect with people,” Costner-Lark said. 

These grants will help pay for a degree, but there’s a bigger picture inside Craft’s eyes.   

“My hope is that it does open the door for someone who maybe thought that they couldn’t,” Craft said. 

Students can’t walk down the nursing path if no one is there to show them the way.  

The grants are from the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Nurse Faculty Loan Program.  

Loans from the NFLP will pay up to $40,000 each year for each eligible graduate student to help cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, lab expenses, and other reasonable education expenses. 

The second HRSA award is a four-year grant to provide financial support to 24 advanced practice nursing students each year at the OU College of Nursing.