Growing more nurses in Austin: Galen Nursing College opens in partnership with St. David's HealthCare

The students seeking a Bachelor of Science in nursing at Galen College of Nursing gathered around hospital beds and talked one another through keeping their workspaces sterile as they inserted catheters into their patients — mannequins with male or female body parts.

Kelvin Ramirez, 24, was able to get the catheter in without risking the patient's health.

"I didn't sweat as much, which is good," he said.

The new Austin nursing school opened in partnership with St. David's HealthCare. Both are partners nationally of HCA HealthCare, but the partnership has more practical applications.

The school, which began teaching students last fall, opened its Austin location inside a medical office building that also houses St. David's training labs and is next to St. David's Surgical Hospital in North Austin.

That proximity will allow some sharing of knowledge and resources as well as enable Galen students to become familiar with a potential employer.

"The intent is that we'll have a very strong alignment of mission and values," St. David's Chief Nursing Executive Susan Griffin said.

Galen doesn't replace all the other nursing schools in town for St. David's, Griffin said.

"We need all of them," she said. "We have a workforce shortage."

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that by 2030, the country will need 276,800 more registered nurses. The median wage for an RN is $77,600 annually.

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Griffin said she has hired 330 nursing graduates to start this summer.

"We could hire more," she said.

Just like hospital systems around the country, St. David's was facing a shortage of nurses before the coronavirus pandemic, Griffin said, but that escalated during the pandemic as some nurses left the profession and others chose to be travel nurses, who tend to be paid more.

The need in particular is for medical-surgical nurses, who take care of patients before and after surgeries, Griffin said.

Griffin came back to St. David's this year from San Antonio, where Galen had a campus tied to Methodist HealthCare. She saw how smooth the transition from school to workplace could be.

"There is no downside to this," she said.

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Training more nurses

"We consider ourselves a workforce solution," said Audria Denker, the vice president of nursing for Galen. "We're not just helping HCA (St. David's). We're helping the community."

Galen studied different areas of the country to see where there was population growth, a need for more nurses and more nursing schools, and an HCA hospital system, before choosing to be in Austin, she said.

In its first class in Austin last fall, Galen admitted 59 students, and the winter and spring sessions admitted 120 each. The July session will start with 200 students. For that session, 600 people applied.

"The demand here for nursing programs is unbelievable," Denker said.

She expects that in a year, Galen will need to expand its space to accommodate more students.

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Galen has multiple courses of study, with a one-year vocational nursing program, an 18-month associate degree and a three-year bachelor's in nursing.

Tuition for that one-year program is almost $22,000. Galen helps connect students to financial aid and scholarships, and she has many students who are working and going to school at the same time. The other programs have a set fee per credit hour, which differs for each student based on past college experience and nursing certifications.

Galen also has a master's and post-master's nurse-educator program.

Just like with nursing, there's a shortage of nursing faculty, Denker said.

"We grow our own," she said, and will reach out to students who have been particularly good to enter those higher-level programs and become faculty members.

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School, work and family together

Galen educates nurses who might get passed over by some of the colleges and universities that have waiting lists for their nursing programs. It admits students every 12 weeks, and admission is done on a first-come, first-served basis for people who meet its qualifications — including a high school diploma or the equivalent and ACT or Test of Essential Academic Skills scores — rather than taking people by test score ranking once or twice a year. Denker's goal is for qualified students not to have to wait more than three months to get enrolled.

"They are allowing people who weren't getting access to nursing a chance to be a nurse," Griffin said.

The average age of Galen's students is 28. Half of its students will be the first in their family to graduate from college, and more than 50% have a child at home, Denker said.

"Our students have grit and determination," she said.

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Galen has two social workers in Austin to help students with needs, including connecting them with child care options, and has a food pantry like at its other 11 locations.

Student Maja Dunn, 25, has a toddler and a job in retail. Finding time to study has sometimes been hard, but she said, "We'll make it."

Because the course work is accelerated, "you have to learn to manage your own time," said Estefany Alcantara, 23.

Ian Kennedy, 28, has a bachelor's in public health and works as a registrar at a St. David's emergency room. When he decided he wanted to be a nurse and have a more hands-on job working with patients, he applied to colleges with a nursing program, but they had long waiting lists.

"This is easier to make it work," he said.

Kelvin Ramirez has been able to fit school in with being a certified nursing assistant in a skilled nursing facility. He liked Galen because of the flexibility on times he could take classes.

"I work nights and then come straight over here," he said. "It's working good right now."

Galen College of Nursing

1201 W. Louis Henna Blvd., Building B, Suite 101

512-420-5121

Galencollege.edu/campuses/austin

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: St. David's HealthCare grows more nurses in Austin with Galen college