Entrepreneurship Education Growing Among Nursing Professionals
It appears that nurses have been lying in wait to stretch an industry’s professional arms of opportunity like their traditional medical doctor colleagues. Private practices, mobile clinics, and telehealth have largely been assumed by physicians and physician specialists like dermatologists, cosmetic surgery, outpatient surgery clinics, and networks throughout countless metropolitan areas across the U.S.
Nurses have joined the professional party of opportunity, supporting several elective and non-elective medical activities, procedures, and practice networks worldwide. The entrepreneur label may be a relatively new association with nursing professionals, but the National Nurses in Business Association (NNBA) launched in 1985. The NNBA began as a newsletter out of California and, through the years, has grown to include national conferences, seminars, and workshops to support nurse entrepreneurs.
Following the trend, the American Academy of Nurse Entrepreneurs (AANE) was started in Austin, Texas, by Veronica Pike, a certified family nurse practitioner (FNP-c) who is the CEO and founder of Ultra Personal Healthcare. The AANE focuses on educational practices and tools for nurses who aim to start their own practice.
Hawai’i Pacific University (HPU) has also embraced nursing students’ requests to incorporate business practice principles into their degree programs. HPU sees growing healthcare needs and the identified gaps in pockets around the country as primers for nurses to leverage their skill sets to benefit patients and nurse entrepreneurs.
In addition, research has been conducted out of Australia by Perihan Senel Tekin and Fevziye Bekar. Their review, Nurse Entrepreneurship in the Emerging Healthcare Industry: A Systemic Review, finds an opportunity for research to expand even further in nursing career applications and options. According to the authors, “Studies show that the potential of nurses in the health sector is not recognized enough. However, nursing as a profession is one of the most rooted areas of the health sector. Still, it needs re-evaluation in terms of the new job description and employment opportunities suitable for its changing roles. With this perspective, nurses should not only be considered as manpower in the health sector but should also be able to take part in the new and competitive health industry with various entrepreneurship dimensions.”
Nurse Kate Sowden’s BeautyFULL Cosmetic Medical Clinic in Brisbane, Australia, shines a light on the nurse entrepreneur down under, focused elective cosmetic procedures for her budding business initially started by her mother, Dr. Margaret Scruton. The clinic comprises several nurse practitioners focused on building a business to serve an exploding healthcare sector. “We must understand how big of an industry this is already and, more so, how massive it can become. In 2021 alone, the cosmetic industry raked in over $14 billion,” according to Sowden.
Aesthetic or cosmetic healthcare continues to expand as acceptance levels increase globally. Sowden says, “There is a much greater demand for cosmetic procedures in modern-day America and Europe, and so there is also a higher demand for cosmetic surgery and general cosmetic procedures.”
Sowden believes that the number of people that want non-invasive cosmetic procedures will only continue to grow. “Life is taking its toll on all of us, and it's only a matter of time before the stress begins to take a toll on our physical appearance. Opting for a non-surgical procedure is a good idea to help you recover the youth and structure in your face.” But beyond looking refreshed, younger, and more robust, Sowden says the effect their procedures have on a patient’s confidence is the greatest win of all.
The Brisbane client has taken a train-the-trainer approach to entrepreneurial pursuits among their providers. “We are also an educational company. For a while now, we started offering service agreements. This arrangement allows us to train, educate, and support like-minded cosmetic injectors to the point where they’re skilled enough to start and grow their own practice,” shares Sowden.
BeautyFULL has become a leading name in Australia’s non-surgical medical cosmetics and Sowden does not appear threatened by the success of the people they have trained.
“I believe no matter how big you get if you haven’t shown anyone else the path to success, you’re not successful yourself. There’s enough of the cosmetic industry pie to go around.”
As more opportunities to expand knowledge at the university level, so do the communities of nurse business owners securing advice and confidence for new career paths. Catie Harris, CEO of NursePreneurs, has cultivated a network of nurse entrepreneurs totaling over 12,000 members tied to continuous learning and community building, and digital experiences.
“Nurses and entrepreneurs aren't really all that different in many ways. Nurses have mastered soft skills, critical thinking, fierce conversations, and delegating tasks, while entrepreneurs have an unshakeable passion to help others that pushes them forward through thick and thin. The combination of these two skill sets is powerful, as each profession could learn significantly from the other,” says Harris in Forbes.
Covid-19 reintroduced the public sector to the value nurses bring to the overall care and practice of health for millions across the world. Many of these same nurses are finding opportunities to build their own systems of practice rather than the systems running them, as has been the case for decades.
During the pandemic, two community nurses in the North of England, Steven Yull and Moraig Orpen, unintentionally devised a business packing solution that supported the safe transit of nursing supplies to patients across the country. The accidental nurse entrepreneurs quickly demonstrated cost savings and increased the production of services with their business. "It brings a great sense of team morale to the district nurses and community staff nurses who use [our product] and pride for the work we do and the organization we work for,” said Orpen.
Sowden, Harris, Pike, Orpen, and Yull, and the AANE and NNBA represent a significant moment in healthcare, regardless of discipline, marking the evolution of nursing as a self-organizing cohort aiming to control outcomes for themselves and their patients.
“It’s [cosmetic healthcare] is a unique space to operate in, which is probably why it attracts more attention from more entrepreneurially-minded and creatively-minded students and healthcare workers,” says Sowden.
Regardless of the discipline, the benefit of entrepreneurial mindsets appears to lie with the nurse entrepreneurs and patients and maybe not so much with hospital system human resource directors.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodberger/2023/02/13/entrepreneurship-education-growing-among-nursing-professionals/?sh=30edf6d98a09
