Nursing News:
New students have diverse backgrounds

By ANN POTEMPA, Anchorage Daily News For years, Mike Moxness tackled legal problems as general counsel for the Carrs grocery chain. Jennifer Patrick fished commercially with her husband out of Port Alexander. Judy Fine adjusted insurance claims. Today, Moxness and Fine are registered nurses and Patrick is on her way to becoming one. Theyıre three examples of people who enrolled in the expanding University of Alaska Anchorage nursing program to pursue a midlife career change.
Moxness worked for Carr Gottstein Foods Co. for about 15 years before leaving in the late 1990s. He returned to a previous passion of teaching emergency medicine to people who work in the backcountry. He said he needed to refresh his skills so enrolled in classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage. At 50, Moxness started earning yet another degree. While his teenager studied for high school, Moxness sequestered himself in the basement, mastering his medical textbooks late into the night. In December, at age 52, Moxness earned his bachelorıs degree in nursing. While volunteering at Providence Alaska Medical Center as an emergency medical technician, he met the nurses and admired their work.
³And now Iım an emergency-room nurse at Providence,² he said. ³Itıs one of the best things Iıve ever done.² Patrick came to Alaska in her early 20s and started bartending in Southeast. She met her husband, a commercial fisherman, and they raised three boys. She said she fished until it became too physically demanding and financially straining. The family moved to Sitka, and Patrick enrolled in one of UAAıs distance nursing programs, working toward a degree she had always wanted.
Patrick plans to complete a two-year nursing degree, graduating at age 40. ³I think my children will be proud when they say ŒMy momıs a nurse,ı ³ she said. The University of Alaskaıs prospective nurses come from both genders as well as many age and cultural groups. Most of the universityıs new nursing students are white. But Alaska Natives, Native Americans and Asian and Pacific Islanders make up the largest percentages of other ethnicities enrolled, according to the School of Nursing. The university has a special program called RRANN, which stands for Recruitment and Retention of Alaska Natives Into Nursing. Twenty-six Natives are enrolled in the nursing program, and 80 more have declared interest in a nursing major, said Jackie Pflaum, interim director of the School of Nursing. Moxness is in the minority as a man. Nursing has been a female-dominated profession, and new nursing students in Alaska still follow that trend; about 88 percent are women.
University charts show the average age of nurses has crept upward, with more and more approaching retirement. In Alaska, about 45 percent of nurses are 41 to 50 and almost 30 percent are older than 51. Moxness and Fine, both in their 50s, are older than the typical new graduating nurse in Alaska.
Pflaumıs staff studied students admitted to the nursing program and those who will enroll through next spring. Almost half of those in the bachelorıs degree program are younger than 25. Those interested in the two-year associate degree are older overall. Even so, three-quarters are 40 or younger. An increase in younger graduates is what Alaska communities need, said Karl Sanford, chief nursing officer at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. The younger they are when they earn their degrees, the longer theyıre likely to stay in the profession.
Still, older nurses like Fine have long-term goals. At 55, she has completed a two-year nursing degree in Kodiak and is working toward a four-year degree. And as manager of the long-term care center at Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center, Fine is considering even more education. ³I donıt let age stop me,² she said.