The accelerated doctoral program in nursing: a university-foundation partnership.

A recent increase in nursing faculty vacancies presents an important impediment to solving the nursing shortage. Today, many schools of nursing are unable to accept qualified nursing students because they do not have sufficient faculty to teach them. Retirements projected during the next decade raise the issue to crisis proportions. One foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, has partnered with the School of Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, to solve this crisis by supporting the development of an accelerated doctoral program for post-master's degree students in which students earn a PhD in 3 years. Students receive a generous stipend that allows them to devote themselves to study, but they must commit to teaching for 3 years in a nursing program on graduation. This partnership is an innovative solution to the current nursing crisis.