‘We’re in desperate need’: UNLV camp works to address nursing shortage
In a University Medical Center classroom, CPR mannequins laid across the tables as a dozen high school students gathered around. Some grabbed the AED, others pretended to call 911 and a few locked their elbows and began performing CPR.
This interactive learning experience is just one that 35 high school students participated in at UNLV’s fifth annual nursing camp, a weeklong summer camp for students interested in the medical field.
The students, ranging in age from 13 to 18, got their first taste of life-saving medicine through a series of certifications and heard the cry to expand the nursing workforce in Nevada, as the state works to find thousands of nurses to ease the shortages.
On Monday, campers gained their Stop the Bleed certification after learning how to apply pressure to a bleeding wound, pack a wound and correctly apply a tourniquet. They also learned how to check vital signs.
Blood pressure, temperature, respiration and heartbeats fell under the vitals demonstration, which was Natalie Caspelan’s favorite part of nursing camp.
“I think it’s one of the most funnest parts to do. It’s very interesting to hear people’s heartbeats,” she said.
Caspelan, a 17-year-old rising senior at Somerset Academy Losee Campus, decided she wanted to go into nursing after her little brother was admitted to the NICU with COVID-19. The nurses who provided for her brother helped her carry on, she said.
As the oldest of four, she said it was difficult to see one of her younger siblings be intubated and slip into a coma.
“My mom, she went into a really hard depression. We all did. It was hard to eat — to live — without my little brother laughing,” Caspelan said. “The biggest help was, of course, nurses.”
The youngest member of the camp, 13-year-old Kellie Chung, was raised to take an interest in how the human body works, she said. Her dad deals with personal “mysterious illnesses,” and his research into his so far uncured ailments spiked her love for anatomy and science.
“He’s learned a lot about medicine and anatomy through his own research, and he brought me along for the ride,” Chung said.
Chung isn’t sure what kind of medical profession she wants to pursue. When she was younger, she considered surgery but decided opening people up wasn’t for her. Now, she’s thinking about pediatric nursing, but she still isn’t sure nursing is her intended career path, she said.
“I just love seeing kids,” Chung, a rising freshman, said. “I’m not even sure if I 100 percent want to do nursing yet since I still have so many years of schooling.”
Margaret Trnka, 57, the camp’s coordinator, has been a nurse since 1997, but she recently went back to school to get her doctorate in education, with a concentration in nursing education. Trnka works specifically with pre-nursing students at UNLV, she said.
‘Light bulb’ moments
She’s worked with the camp since its inception, but this is the first year that she took on the head leadership role.
“I like that newness — that light bulb going off when they learn something new. I like catching them as they’re starting that whole idea of being a nurse,” Trnka said.
The camp has 70 students over the course of two weeks. In their respective weeks, campers will learn how to stop the bleed, check vital signs, perform CPR, sutures and receive advice on nursing school applications.
UNLV admits 312 students to its nursing program every year, yet there’s still nursing deficits in every hospital in the valley, she said.
“We’re in desperate need of nurses in the Las Vegas Valley, and so if we can encourage 10 out of the 35 to truly pursue that goal and be a nurse here in the future,” she said. “The state of nursing in the Las Vegas Valley is pretty much the same as it is across the nation, in that we’re in the nursing shortage.”
Filling the gap
Recent legislation sought to fill the nursing shortage gaps in Nevada. In a December 2022 call to action by the Nevada Health Workforce Research Center, the center estimated that the state needs over 4,000 registered nurses “simply to meet the national population-to-RN average.”
The call to action went on to explain policy would be necessary to bridge that gap. In 2023, Nevada Senate Bill 375 passed unanimously. The bill allocated $20 million to undergraduate and graduate nursing programs in the state over fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
On a national level, U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., introduced the Train More Nurses act in September 2023, and it passed in the Senate in January.
Amy Runge, 50, is a clinical nurse manager for University Medical Center in Las Vegas. She manages the staff who taught Tuesday’s demonstrations at UMC and recognizes the need to show young students interested in nursing what it’s like, she said.
“Nursing in general is always looking for new blood, and we’re in desperate need of nurses,” she said. “You have to capture them and show them: This is what nursing is about. This is what a hospital looks like. Here, you’re at our level one trauma. This is it. You’re at the best facility in Nevada, and we’re going to show you what it looks like.”
UMC has partnered with UNLV’s nursing camp since its start. She thinks the flexibility nursing provides is a big selling point for young students who are still unsure. Nurses can change their paths within the profession later in life like Runge did, she said.
“The beauty of nursing is there are so many different areas you can get in,” she said. “It’s scary to think ‘I’m 17. I’m deciding what I want to do for the rest of my life.’ With nursing, you’re deciding ‘I want to be a nurse,’ but the future is all yours for nursing.”
Contact Ella Thompson at ethompson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @elladeethompson on X.
