How Nashville State is expanding its nursing program amid a national shortage (2025)

Inside a classroom at Nashville State Community College, nursing student Christa Hansen helped suction a tube inserted into a patient's trachea to keep his airway clear.

The patient is actually a training dummy that instructors can manipulate into yelling, moaning, retching, suffering blood pressure spikes, heart attacks and other medical emergencies. Across the room, a tube is hooked up to another dummy and connected to a machine that simulates bleeding.

The class is part of Nashville State's growing registered nurse program, helping train future caregivers amid local and national nurse shortages. It fits in with the college's School of Health Sciences' larger mission to help fill a variety of health care employment gaps.

"With nursing, there is a demand" in hospitals and other medical settings, said Donna Whitehouse, dean of the School of Health Sciences. "Our students, when they leave here, have no problems finding a job."

Nashville State has doubled down, offering two annual nursing programs − one that began in the fall and one that launched in the spring −on its White Bridge Road campus for a total of 80 new students, Whitehouse said. It's also planning to admit a total of 48 students into new nursing programs within the next few years at its locations in Dickson and Clarksville.

The White Bridge Road campus also has a classroom that mimics a hospital room with a dummy that gives birth and a miniature dummy hooked up to tubes that offers training on caring for infants in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Hansen, 50, initially wanted to work in an oncology department after seeing how well nurses cared for her mother after a cancer diagnosis. But she also has found value in other areas during clinical learning at a senior living center and at a mental health facility.

"We're learning a lot," Hansen said. "It just opens your mind up to other possibilities.

"I'm a nurturer and I know I want to care for people."

Hansen is on course to complete her associates degree in health sciences next year, going right to work as a registered nurse. Others opt to transfer to four-year colleges to complete bachelors degrees.

Nashville State aims to train other health professionals

Along with a national nursing shortage, there are other gaps in the health care field that Nashville State is working to fill.

Hospital officials regularly communicate with the college to let them know of workforce shortages. Currently, there aren't enough surgical technologists or central sterile processing technicians, Whitehouse said. These roles certainly are not as well known as nurses or surgeons, but they play a key role in caring for patients.

The surgical technologist stands beside the surgeon in the operating room and prepares to hand over any one of hundreds of instruments, such as clamps and surgical scissors. It's more complicated than it sounds with many instruments looking similar and with seconds counting. There's also a correct way to pass the instrument to avoid cutting the physician and to keep the instrument sterile.

"There's a critical shortage," Whitehouse said.

Twenty surgical technology students started the program in fall 2023 and are now receiving clinical training at area hospitals, Whitehouse said. And 25 more started last spring, but neither class reached the 32-student capacity.

In one classroom, several large screens are mounted on the walls and offer virtual simulation of surgeries.

The college also offers training to help plug the gap in central sterile processing technicians. They're the ones who ensure the surgical instruments are sterile and organized. They must follow several steps to clean and sterile equipment after surgery.

The school has elaborate training rooms set up to resemble the area outside a hospital's operating room. There are double sinks to scrub in before surgery and large basins to clean the equipment afterward. Large metal sterilizers heat the equipment to sanitize it before it's repackaged for use and stored in large plastic tool boxes, hospital workers dub "coffins."

In one year, the students can earn certification, transitioning from the classroom to the hospital.

Nashville State also offers an occupational therapy assistance program, which may involve helping patients after surgery, car crashes, strokes or other ailments.

Nashville State admitted 27 students to this program in fall 2023 and they are now learning in clinical settings at rehab centers, hospitals, school settings and other locations. Another 27 started in fall 2024 and are in on-campus classes.

An occupational therapist job focuses on skills for the job of living or functioning and that includes thinking and taking care of personal needs, including how to safely use the restroom and shower as well as cooking and laundry.

The occupational therapist conducts and evaluation and determines the direction of care, while the occupational therapy assistant takes the evaluation and creates goals, building a treatment plan and delivering that treatment.

"There are shortages in rehab all around," Whitehouse said.

Partnering with area therapists

The college has partnered with Lyttle Fox Therapy in Wilson County for more than a decade to give occupational therapy assistant students hands-on experience with children in a clinical setting.

The clinic works with children who need assistance performing functional tasks to help them become independent adults. They help children who have been diagnosed with a variety of conditions, including cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, autism and developmental delays.

"We always take students from there without hesitation because they are always well-prepared and bring good clinical skills to our facility," said Sharon D. Lyttle, owner and CEO of Lyttle Fox Therapy.

The clinic has hired several Nashville State graduates.

"We love having a great local school to provide the clinical portion of their education to, as well as a resource for future employees that we know are trained for pediatric care to our most vulnerable population," said Lyttle, an occupational therapist registered, or OTR.

Currently, there are 54 students learning these skills at Nashville Tech, said Piper Sesnan, director of the occupational therapy assistant program.

In a classroom, students can learn how to help clients safely get in and out of a car. A black box on the mock tan car measures how long it takes the driver to break, turn or stop and students learn how to work with clients to improve reaction times.

Other classrooms look like a person's home, including a bedroom, bathroom, living room, playroom, kitchen and laundry room. Here, students learn how to help children and adults with key life skills.

Students also do field trips, including the sometimes feared "bus day."

Students are divided into three groups and assigned a mobility and hearing or visual deficit assign. They must buy a bus ticket and go to either a doctor's office, the social security office or a grocery store.

Some are told to maneuver as if they have impaired eyesight or hearing loss while using a cane, walker, crutches or wheelchair.

"It's a day where we try to teach empathy to our students," Sesnan said.

At the end of the day, students have learned a little about challenges their future clients might face on a daily basis.

"It's a mix of emotions. They're usually very mentally fatigued when they get back," Sesnan said. "But it is very eye opening."