Why Choose Us
 
 

Here's a true story that a graduate couldn't wait to tell us. She was at a job interview at a major hospital in Massachusetts . The interviewer opened her folder and said, “Oh, you're an honors graduate from Rochester . We don't need an interview. Where do you want to work?”

The School of Nursing really does enjoy an awesome reputation. We're ranked one of the best in the country in many areas. (Read about our national rankings, achievements and honors).

That reputation rests not only on our eighty year history, but on all that we offer students today.

 

The Benefits of a Small College and a Major University

With only four hundred students, the School of Nursing is relatively small. So students enjoy the personal attention and sense of intimacy found in a small college, where focusing on student needs is a primary value. But we're also part of one of the nation's leading research universities and an academic medical center. Students have the vast intellectual resources of the University of Rochester at their disposal. And they have the opportunity to work with a diverse patient population at a variety of community and research hospitals that are part of the University of Rochester Medical Center's network.

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A Full Array of Academic Programs as Individual as You

Our diverse array of programs leads to a variety of degrees, from the BS to MS degrees in Leadership and Health Care Systems to PhD degrees. We also have post-doctoral programs and offer continuing education courses through The Center for Lifelong Learning. We are constantly developing new programs and new ways to teach. We update our curriculum every year and also find ways to improve each course.

Programs are based on our Unification Model, an approach we pioneered about thirty years ago that is now a model for other nursing programs across North America . Under this model, our faculty has blended practice and research into nursing education. Our clinical faculty are active practitioners (for example, Rita D'Aoust, APNN Director, practices once a week at a local neighborhood clinic for the underserved) Our students learn not only how to care for patients, but also how to do clinical research, and how to translate those research results into the most effective patient care practices.

Our admission and program requirements respect your individuality, knowledge, and experience. For example, our Accelerated Bachelors Program for Non-Nurses provides an intensive, on-site educational experience that allows individuals with a bachelor's degree in another field to become Registered Nurses in just one year. Our RN to BS degree program gives nurses credit for real-life learning experiences and we'll transfer most of your prior credits . Course work for this program is flexible with evening and block scheduling of classes and on-line course options.

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Faculty Who Are Outstanding Teachers and Expert Clinicians

One of the most important reasons for choosing any school is its faculty. Our faculty are not only outstanding teachers, they're also expert clinicians who practice what they teach.

They bring that real-world experience into every classroom – and every informal, “in-the-hall” discussion. You can feel their passion for educating a new generation of health-care leaders in the way they talk with students. They're genuinely excited to share their ideas, their skills, and their knowledge of what life in the field is really like.

Most of them do advanced, research-based, “best practice” nursing in the most progressive clinical settings. They constantly translate clinical research into better patient care. So they're uniquely positioned to help you learn the newest and most successful practices at each step in your education. Whatever your interest or specialization, they'll strive to enhance your abilities to work in interdisciplinary teams with other health professionals.

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Exceptionally Talented Fellow Students

It's often said that students learn almost as much from other students as from faculty.

While that may not be precisely accurate, you can be certain that your fellow students are an exceptionally talented and dedicated group. They all start out as either RNs who want to advance their careers even further, or as professionals in other fields who have chosen to enter nursing.

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A Breadth of Opportunity

Because of the University of Rochester Medical Center's position as one of the country's leading research institutions, and the network of hospitals and facilities associated with it, students at the School of Nursing enjoy many educational opportunities unavailable elsewhere, such as:

  • Doing rotations in a variety of settings to develop the broadest range of patient care skills in the most technically advanced environments, such as our 52-bed neonatal intensive care unit (most hospitals have fewer than a dozen ICU beds for all ages).
  • Practicing with our Center for Nursing Entrepreneurship (CNE), a nursing group practice that provides health care and related consultative services by contract for area businesses, schools, agencies, and other organizations. Unlike grant funded community nursing centers, the CNC operates as a business and generates funds to support its research and education mission.
  • Working with leading, nationally known researchers and physicians who value collaborative teamwork and professional colleagues who are career oriented rather than job oriented.

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A History of Innovation

Our more than eighty year history is a story of important innovations that have advanced the entire profession. For example, we were among the first to develop:

  • The nurse practitioner movement (pioneered by our former dean, Loretta “Lee” Ford)
  • The Unification Model
  • The burn nurse specialist
  • A masters program in Disaster Response and Emergency Preparedness
  • Specialty concentrations in primary care, psychiatric-mental health, pediatric, gerontological, and community health nursing
  • The first formal acute-care nurse practitioner program in the U.S.
  • An international exchange visitor program for nurses from other countries
  • The Ph.D. in nursing

 

Today, the innovations continue:

  • We're among the first to develop a new Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program.
  • We've initiated the country's first Center for Nursing Entrepreneurship (CNE). Its mission is to develop in nurses the ability to identify a need they can fill, develop a concept to meet that need, and then turn it into a business under the center's auspices.
  • We've opened a Nutrition and Weight Management Clinic that offers the region's first systemized screening and assessment toolkit, improving how physicians and other healthcare professionals identify and design treatment plans for overweight and obese patients. Students are offered an elective course in weight management.
  • We've set up a Center for Research and Evidence-Based Practice to facilitate research by our faculty, students and practicing nurses. Evidence-based education prepares nurses to critically evaluate and incorporate research findings into patient care.

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Extensive School Resources

Among the resources available to School of Nursing students are:

  • Our state-of-the-art Clinical and Educational Resource Center , including “Sim-Man” a computer-driven manikin that can “respond” to various nursing interventions
  • Classrooms with wireless, video conferencing, and smart classroom technology
  • Extensive library collections

Get more information about our Learning Environment.

Students on a research track find additional support services through our Center for Research and Evidence-Based Practice.

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Rochester – A Great Place to Live

Just as the school combines the advantages of a small, close-knit college and a large research university, Rochester itself combines the diversity, activities, and opportunities of urban living with the warmth, neighborliness, and comforts of a much smaller community.

You'll feel the spirit of a great city in our astonishing arts and cultural scene, our sophisticated nightlife, restaurants, and stores, and in our endless recreation opportunities.

You'll find the comforts of a community in our amazingly affordable cost of living (especially the cost of housing) and remarkably short commute time (you can live “out in the country” and be downtown in less than thirty minutes or live in lovely suburbs just ten minutes from downtown).

In other words, while everyone talks about “Quality of Life,” we have it.

That's why Money Magazine ranked us as one of the northeast's ten “Best Places to Live in America ” and the Partners for Livable Communities listed us as one of the “Most Livable Cities” in America . Read more about Living in Rochester.

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