Posted on: Thursday, August 14, 2003

Ten Native Hawaiians to get nursing training

Advertiser Staff

Ten Native Hawaiian students will begin three years of nursing training at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa this fall thanks to a $241,000 grant from The Queen's Medical Center.

The UH/Queen's partnership is part of an attempt to increase the number of Native Hawaiian healthcare practitioners in the state, and increase the number of Native Hawaiian students — a goal of the new UH strategic plan.

"The nursing program has one of the highest percentages of Native Hawaiian students at the Manoa campus," said chancellor Peter Englert in praising the cooperative program.

Only 5.1 percent of the registered nurses in Hawai'i are Native Hawaiian, though Native Hawaiians make up 19 percent of the local population. With the entry this fall of these 10 students, 13 percent of the nursing students at Manoa are Native Hawaiian. In the overall student body, 8.4 percent are Native Hawaiian.

The groundwork for this first group was laid with a federal Nursing Workforce Diversity grant to prepare pre-nursing students for entry into the nursing program, called the 'Ike Ao Pono project. It was coordinated by Nalani Minton Henderson with support from Lois Magnussen, both officials with the School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene at UH.