For Kenny Nordlund, graduate education at UCLA means an opportunity to improve his skills in a career he loves, acute care nursing. A full-time employee in the Emergency Room at California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles, Kenny is also a full-time student in UCLA's Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program.

"I like taking care of people who are really sick," he says. The Master's of Science in Nursing degree that the program awards will expand the kind of caring Kenny is licensed to do. As an advanced practice nurse he will be able to perform suturing, intubations and placement of invasive central venous catheters.

At UCLA, Kenny will complete about 60 units in the classroom, as well as 570 hours in a clinical setting. The two-year program that awards a Master's of Science degree in Nursing was established in 1994 in response to increasing interest in advanced practice nursing.

Nurse practitioners, who are licensed to handle more responsibilities than registered nurses, often work in medical office settings, supplementing the services a physician provides in family or women's health, for example. The acute care program expands their range to emergency care.

"The emergence of the nurse practitioner is becoming better understood by people in the health care community and the general public," Kenny says, "and doors are opening left and right. It's just a matter of finding what's going to work best for me."

Besides enhancing his working career, Kenny's studies will enhance the services he brings to Third World countries. Working with a couple of U.S.-based organizations, Kenny participates in missions to establish and staff clinics that provide basic medical treatment and education.

Kenny's desire to be involved in health care goes back to his days at Northern Illinois University, where in 1988 he received a B.S. in nursing. Since then, he has worked primarily in emergency-trauma care. When he considered returning to school, he debated between programs at UCLA and USC.

"I was very impressed with UCLA. I was accepted, and everything was easy," Kenny said. His experience since he came on campus has also been good. "You can literally go to anybody in the School of Nursing," he said. "The doors are always open, and you just sit down and start talking. They are more than willing to help you out."

There was also financial help in the form of a traineeship scholarship that pays half of Kenny's schooling this year, a welcome bonus. Like many students in the School of Nursing's programs in advanced practice nursing, he is supporting a family while he works and studies.

In addition to his work and study load, Ken finds time to participate in the Graduate Nursing Association. "He's very enthusiastic," says Associate Dean Kay Baker, "and he's an excellent clinician."

Published in Fall 1997, Graduate Quarterly