By Janie Magruder
GCU News Bureau
The College of Nursing and Health Care Professions at Grand Canyon University has received a $6,000 scholarship donation from Health Care Clinics (HCC) at select Walgreens to be awarded this spring to a student in the Family Nurse Practitioner Program.
The check was presented on Thursday to Dr. Anne McNamara, CONHCP’s dean, by Dana Hasten, market manager of clinical operations for the South Phoenix market of HCC, and David Koppein, HCC’s North Phoenix market manager. Hasten and Koppein are board-certified family nurse practitioners.
Arizona has 32 Health Care Clinics at select Walgreens, including 22 in the Phoenix metropolitan area, where GCU students and graduates in the master of science in nursing/family nurse practitioner find clinical training and jobs. The clinics are staffed by nurse practitioners who diagnose and treat acute and chronic illnesses, everything from bronchitis and strep throat to asthma and hypertension.
The inaugural scholarship will bolster the education and employment of family nurse practitioners, whom Hasten called the centerpiece of the clinics’ health care model, which promotes patient-centered communication and care.
“We want to help the nurse practitioner students at GCU be prepared to work in the field,” Hasten said. “With health care evolving in the direction that it is, and with the anticipated shortage of health care professionals, we need more primary-care providers. There will be more demand and fewer opportunities for patients to have access to convenient, quality health care.”
McNamara said the HCCs make it easy for people to receive care in their neighborhoods.
“It’s a model for the future that exists today -- health care is being provided in the communities where people live,” she said. "And from an educational perspective, this scholarship is going to help our students with the burden of tuition costs while affording them opportunities to learn and work in these wonderful clinics. We are so thankful for their continued support of our University and its students.”
McNamara said the scholarship recipient will be selected soon.
Contact Janie Magruder at 639.8018 or [email protected].
