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PROBLEM.  Unlike other professional healthcare disciplines, the profession of nursing has multiple levels of entry. Recently, several states have proposed legislation to mandate completion of baccalaureate education after 10 years of nursing licensure. METHODS.  This article examines the proposals, statistics, strategies, and other relevant literature on baccalaureate education for nurses and the positive outcomes associated with a more highly educated nursing workforce. FINDINGS.  The proposal recognizes the entry level preparation provided by associate degree nurses and is an innovative solution that offers a balance between multiple entry levels into practice and continued educational preparation. CONCLUSIONS.  Through a combination of the entry level preparation of associate degree nurses and baccalaureate education, a stronger nursing workforce can be created and patient outcomes and quality of care improved., (© 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Although accelerated second bachelor's degree programs have existed for more than 30 years, few studies have tracked the changing student profile over time. This study compared demographics and academic performance of accelerated students enrolled during 1997 to 2003 with those enrolled during 2004 to 2006 at a small, rural, public mid-Atlantic university. Recently enrolled students were older, more diverse in gender and ethnicity, held multiple degrees, and had a significant time delay since their first degree. Modifications in educational strategies, support services, and curricular design, as well as suggestions for future research are proposed.

With staff shortages reaching crisis level, the government is keen to encourage back nurses who have taken a career break. For one nurse, this has worked well.

The Federation of German Vocational Retraining Centres have recently completed a fundamental revision and update of their conceptual approach, adjusting it to the technological advances at hand as well as to a changing labour market. Novel educational concepts offer broader space for accommodating the needs of individual rehabilitees and for enhancing their competence, technical, methodological and social, in terms of present-day, wholistic rehabilitation. New approaches are being implemented, the vocational training centres opening up for new groups (such as one-parent families) and offering rehabilitation programmes on a non-residential basis as well. Further-training schemes have been devised to ensure that disabled people, too, have access to the current state-of-the-art. An indispensable part of vocational rehabilitation programmes also in the future, the Specialized Services of the vocational retraining centres are going to adapt to the changing situation as well.

Commissioned by, and at the expense of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Order, the Ministry of Welfare of the Latvian Republic has been supported by BTZ, Berufliches Trainingszentrum Hamburg, in its drive to set up a rehabilitation centre. Conceptual development completed in late 1991 along the lines of the vocational training and retraining centres in Germany, the RRC, Republican Rehabilitation Centre, was founded in Jurmala on the Gulf of Riga in February 1992, as a limited liability company. The present article outlines some of the background and problems involved, gives information on developments in conceptual respects, on counselling and training of the teachers and instructors, as well as the organizational development taken and likely future course.

This article outlines a program developed by the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) for training gastroenterologists in endoscopy techniques that had not been introduced at the time of their fellowships. Discussed are prerequisites for students, criteria for teachers, elements for the teaching program, and methods for documenting the experience. Problems to be anticipated are highlighted and include liability, justification of an attenuated training experience, and the acceptability of such a program for purposes of obtaining privileges. Also considered is ASGE's experience with this program and the potential for its use in other nontraditional teaching situation, for example, managed care.

Part of the health care provider restructuring consists of physician specialists retraining in primary care. The need is there, with additional pressures for qualified "gatekeepers" coming from the increase in managed care contracting.

To perfect extracurricular work of the trainee physicians in acquiring new knowledge and skills in childhood neurology, the pedagogical collective of the Chair of Nervous Diseases have elaborated a definite system of training. Apart from the generally accepted methods, namely the solution of topical and situational problems, the trainees participate in specialized thematic discussions, master manual skills, and so forth. The system elaborated favoured more proper preparation of the childhood neurologist for independent work.

This survey revealed that the majority of nursing schools responding, both public and private, required a 2.5 GPA for admission and that this standard had not been lowered in response to the nursing shortage. In general, responses indicated a belief that those students admitted with a GPA of less than 2.5 were not as likely to be successful in the program. Although some research in higher education suggests that more stringent requirements tend to improve the status of the college and therefore improve the quality of the applicants, the results of this survey did not support this. However, those schools that had increased their admission standards had done so within the past five years and, therefore, the effects of these changes may not yet be realized. The number, variety, and level of difficulty of prerequisite courses had remained constant and, in some cases, increased. Lowering the number and level of difficulty of prerequisite courses was not being done even with a decrease in the applicant pool. Required nursing courses were being offered on a more frequent basis by some schools to attract more students by increasing flexibility within the program and to increase the number of times during the year that students can be admitted. More time and money were being spent to improve the image of nursing and to recruit qualified students into the profession. Efforts were also being made to make it feasible for associate degree nurses to return for their bachelors degree in nursing.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, has sponsored a retraining program for clinically inactive physicians since 1968. A previous study examined return to clinical medicine of retrainees from 1968 to 1975. The present study tracked changes in physician characteristics from 1976 to 1981 and compared return to clinical medicine of retrainees in the two time periods. Although important shifts in gender, nature of inactivity, status of licensure, and geographic distribution occurred during the past five years, the number of retrainees returning to clinical activity after the program was comparable for the two time periods (85% and 83%). Women inactive because of family responsibilities and non-clinically active physicians made more career changes than non-primary care clinical specialists. This study demonstrated that a retraining program is an effective method for reintroducing inactive physicians to clinical medicine.