The UNC School of Nursing waived tuition and fees for the Registered Nurse Refresher theory course to help some former nurses return to the field in response to the spread of COVID-19.
“We want to make sure the people of North Carolina get the best and the safest healthcare possible,” Nena Peragallo Montano, dean of the UNC School of Nursing, said. “We are teaming up with all the other health care providers to do this. This is a time of crisis, we are all doing our part.”
The Registered Nurses Refresher theory course, part of the nursing re-licensure process, is a partnership between the nursing school, the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers and the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education.
“Nurses have always responded to crises in many ways,” Peragallo Montano said. “I think in this moment with the COVID pandemic happening and also, added to that, with the shortage of nurses in the state of North Carolina, there's a real need to have more nurses come to practice.”
The re-licensure program includes a theory and a clinical component. Peragallo Montano said if a nurse has allowed their license to lapse for less than five years, they only have to complete the online theory course, for which the fee has been waived.
“We’re going through tough economic times also in many households,” Peragallo Montano said. “People might want to come back to work because they want to practice again, or people may have the need to go back to work.”
Meg Zomorodi, assistant provost for Interprofessional Education and Practice and a professor in the school of nursing, said the course allows a streamlined pathway to re-licensure.
“Nursing is predominantly a helping profession,” Zomorodi said. “These nurses who are watching this pandemic unfold and want to be helpful can actually go back in an accelerated pathway to complete the theory component as well as the clinical practicum, and then we can get them into the field, which is where we need them.”
The online theory course has been accelerated to three months, rather than the traditional nine months, to meet the current need for nurses, according to University Communications.
