Careers Beyond the Bedside: one approach to develop the ethnic minority nursing faculty pool.

The wide disparities in health by race and ethnicity across the nation underscore the continuing need to increase the number of racial and ethnic minorities in the nursing workforce. In their roles as educators and researchers, minority nursing faculty help to alleviate the current disconnect between health care providers and the population that nurses serve. The authors have developed a program to increase the number of minority students in the baccalaureate nursing program at their university and to prepare them to enroll in doctoral programs within 1 year of graduation. The Careers Beyond the Bedside program offers undergraduates preentry, academic enrichment, and graduate school preparation activities designed to facilitate careers as nursing faculty educators and researchers.