A message from College of Nursing Dean Jill Guttormson

Dear alumni and friends of Marquette Nursing, 

One of the things that is always top of mind for Marquette Nursing is how we can best serve our students and ensure readiness for practice. Ever since the university acquired the Trinity Hospital Training School for Nursing in 1912, we’ve been teaching students the critical thinking skills required to become safe, effective, and holistic clinicians. However, the challenges posed by the nationwide nursing shortage demand bold, new ideas for ways we can train Marquette Nurses for the future of health care. 

It is in that spirit that we’ve signed an agreement with Wisconsin-based software company Epic Systems to offer their electronic health records system to our students. We are the first nursing program to partner in this way with the largest EHR provider in America. Seniors in the college train on the exact same platform they will see in hospitals, ensuring they’ll be as prepared as possible for their first day on the job. In this newsletter, you’ll read more about how the partnership came to be and how the college is creatively deploying this new technology. 

You will also read about a novel immersive poverty simulation for our introductory-level nurses that prepares them for the realities of caring for underserved patients and allows them to better see the whole patient. You will also read about the Marquette Nurse Midwifery Program. As one of fewer than 50 accredited programs in America, the program has trained courageous, caring nurse-midwives for more than two decades to provide holistic patient care before, during and after the birthing process.

We intend to produce 5,000 highly proficient, culturally competent nurses over the next decade. Everything we do as a college —from the new building to technology-forward partnerships to curriculum design to the people we hire — is aligned in service of that goal. When the profession has a need, Marquette Nursing adapts to answer the call. That’s the way it has been for the last century and that’s the way it still is today. 

I thank you for your continued support of Marquette University and of the College of Nursing.

Sincerely, 
Dr. Jill Guttormson 
Dean of the College of Nursing