Raising High School Students' Awareness of Nurse Practitioners and Interest in Becoming Nurse Practitioners as a Means to Addressing the Primary Care Shortage

The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts the primary care physician shortage will be 21,000 by 2015 (HealthReform.gov, 2012). Sixty million people, almost one out of every five Americans, do not have adequate access to care due to the lack of primary care providers (Kaiseredu.org, 2011). Nurse practitioners (NPs) are well positioned to meet part of the growing demand for primary care practitioners, and raising awareness of nurse practitioners will aid in this process (American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, n.d.). The objectives of this project were to raise Davis County, Utah high school students' awareness of NPs and to encourage these high school students to pursue careers as NPs. These objectives were accomplished through presentations given to eleven high school Medical Anatomy and Physiology (MAP) classes and one certified nursing assistant class. Presentation materials were created and provided to MAP teachers for future use and a You Tube video was created and posted with the intent of increasing knowledge about NPs amongst a larger audience of high school students. Evaluation of the project included pre and post-questionnaires for students and a post questionnaire for teachers. IRB approval was obtained and the project was deemed exempt. The pre and post questionnaires, completed by the high schools students, revealed an increased knowledge of NPs and an increase in student aspirations to become NPs. Teachers felt the project objectives were met, the presentation and YouTube video were well done, appropriate for high school students, and were willing to use the materials in future classes. Copies of the voice-over PowerPoint presentation and YouTube video and link were mailed to teachers on a DVD. Teachers were also given the link to the Jeopardy game, used at the end of the presentation.