Service learning: preparing a healthcare workforce for the next century.

Service learning coupled with community-based education is an effective way for educators to prepare nurses for their roles in healthcare for the 21st century. Structuring the curriculum to provide learning experiences that prepare nurses to meet the healthcare needs of aggregates and populations is the responsibility of nursing faculty today. Students need opportunities to work both with and within communities as partners, as well as experiences with interdisciplinary collaboration, to achieve this goal. The authors describe how two disciplines within the university and a community in rural eastern North Carolina partnered to accomplish this task.