Premiere Date: Tuesday, May 9 at 9:30 p.m.
Repeat Date: Sunday, May 14 at 12:30 p.m.
When you need a nurse, will one be there? Today, Connecticut has 24 percent fewer nurses than it needs.
Is there a remedy for this dilemma? In Nursing Shortage: Diagnosis Critical, a new CPTV Original documentary, viewers meet nurses on the job and find out what hospitals, educators and medical policy experts are doing to cure the shortage. The broadcast premiere of this CPTV Original has been scheduled to coincide with National Nurses Week, May 6 through May 12, 2006.
Nursing Shortage: Diagnosis Critical tracks the working lives of nurses in several Connecticut hospitals, from the intensive day of a Life Star nurse at Hartford Hospital to the critical care given to premature infants at the neonatal unit at John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington.
In the search for answers to how Connecticut is coping with the looming nursing shortage, the program looks at the education system and the lack of nursing professors in our state’s schools. Young student nurses from the University of Connecticut and Capital Community College in Hartford talk about their nursing training and the anxiety of being on the floor the first day. Timothy Squires, clinical instructor at MidState Medical Center in Meriden, juggles the needs of students with the hospitals need to move nurses into the system as quickly as possible.
Leon Grabowski, emergency room nurse at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in West Haven, discusses how he was able to return to the nursing profession after taking an innovative online refresher course offered by Charter Oak State College. Ellen Leone, director of nursing at the University of Connecticut Health Center, discusses ways to recruit and retrain nurses in a highly competitive environment. The program also features Suzanne Gordon, noted author of the book Nursing Against the Odds, who exposes some of the pressures of nursing in the age of managed care.
“The nursing shortage is a critical issue that we want to highlight,” said Jay Whitsett, vice president of programming for CPTV. “By premiering this CPTV Original during National Nurses Week, we hope to acknowledge the strength, commitment and compassion of nurses.”
Production Credits
Producer/Director/Writer: Roynn Lisa Simmons
Executive Producer: Jay Whitest, vice president of programming, CPTV
Copyright 2006 Connecticut Public Television
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