Temple’s new chair of nursing looks to tackle the school’s challenges and launch new programs

Temple University students recently started a new academic year, and among the new faces on campus is the chair of the university’s Department of Nursing.

Earlier this summer, Temple hired Amita Avadhani, a nurse-practitioner with over a decade of teaching experience, to lead its nursing department. Prior to joining Temple, Avadhani spent 13 years overseeing graduate nursing programs at Rutgers University. She holds doctorate degrees in nursing and general psychology.

Avadhani joins the North Philly-based university at a time when about a third of nursing positions in Pennsylvania hospitals are vacant. And Temple’s department is among six Philly-area nursing programs being watched by the state Board of Nursing because too many graduates failed to pass their licensure exams last year.

Avadhani sees the new position as an opportunity to better prepare nurses for a field strained by worker shortages and high rates of burnout. She wants to pursue new programs for more specialized and higher-level nursing work, which could help fill workforce gaps.

“I’m hopeful that I would be able to work here and call it my home for a while,” Avadhani said. “The most important thing is to make a difference.”

Temple’s largest nursing program is its bachelor of science in nursing, or BSN, which admits more than 100 students every year. The program prepares trainees to work in clinical settings and pass the NCLEX, the exam that licenses registered nurses.

Only 72% of Temple graduates passed the exam last year. That’s below the 80% pass rate required by state regulators. The performance landed Temple on the state Board of Nursing list of programs with “provisional” status.

Avadhani said the decline in scores reflected a one-year blip and was part of a national trend. So far this year, more than 90% of first time test takers have passed, she said.

“I’m confident that we will be able to resolve that,” Avadhani said.

She said a new simulation lab is planned for the nursing program in a new building for the College of Public Health. The lab should help students better prepare for the exam.

» READ MORE: Six Philly-area nursing schools are being watched by state board

Avadhani has plans to develop new nursing programs at Temple.

She is developing an accelerated bachelor’s degree in nursing that she expects to launch next fall. The program is designed to help people who already earned a bachelor’s degree in another field transition careers and earn a BSN in less than two years.

» READ MORE: Pennsylvania House approves bill to require nurse staffing minimums in hospitals

Bringing new nurses to the field can help ease shortages. But hospitals, nursing homes, and other health-care organizations must do more to address burnout, a leading reason many nurses have left the profession in recent years, according to multiple surveys.

To help retain workers, health-care systems could reduce the number of patients each nurse must care for and improve benefits packages, Avadhani said.

For their part, nursing programs can offer more preparation for the job’s challenges. She wants Temple’s nurse educators to teach students the technical skills they need to care for patients, as well as the emotional and mental skills they’ll need to care for themselves.