The University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s College of Nursing has received a four-year, $4 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to support increasing the number and diversity of nurse midwives in the Delta region.
The college launched a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) concentration in Nurse Midwifery in 2021, with the goal of improving health outcomes for pregnant women and their babies. Now in its third year, the program has 21 students and will graduate its first cohort of six students in May, 2024. The HRSA grant, which began Sept. 30, 2023, will provide stipends to educate 12-14 nurse midwifery students annually. It will also allow an expansion of clinical learning sites.
“The impact of this grant is that, for the first time ever, the money will be available for us to develop community partnerships for midwifery education in rural and underserved areas,” said Professor Kate Fouquier, PhD, CNM, FACNM, principal investigator for the grant and coordinator of the DNP in Nurse Midwifery. “Developing community partnerships with providers in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi will give us the capacity to educate more midwives and to reduce the mortality of mothers and babies.”
Read more at our UTHSC news site.