Clemson University. College of Nursing. School Nurse Practitioner.

The School Nurse Practitioner Program offered at Clemson University was a sixteen-month program of continuing education for nurses interested in delivering primary health care to an underserved and needy population of school age children and adolescents in the southeastern portion of the United States. The need for school-based health care and nurse practitioners was documented by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's National School Health Project, 1983. There was no school nurse practitioner training program in the State of South Carolina or elsewhere in the southeast when Clemson University's College of Nursing was awarded a grant by the Division of Nursing, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1985. Lorena Downs, RN, CPNP, MA, was hired as a program director in April 1986. Judith Igoe, Director of the School Nurse Practitioner Program at the University of Colorado, served as consultant. The first class of students was admitted in March 1986 and the second class of students was admitted in March of 1987. Eligibility requirements were for practicing registered nurses with a minimum of three years of work experience who intended to pursue a career in school nursing or college health nursing. A total of 11 students completed the program. The School of Nurse Practitioner Program was terminated September 30, 1988 because funding for the program was not continued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.