Thirty students yesterday took part in their first day in a new program at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa campus that takes aim at the heart of the state's growing nursing shortage.

The School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene students are part of the Master's Entry Program in Nursing, which was designed to draw into the profession adult learners who already have an undergraduate degree but no nursing experience or education.

What really has those in the local healthcare industry excited, however, is that the program is focused on moving out students who want to gain specialty nursing skills or who want to become nursing administrators, supervisors or teachers.

Those are two of the most pressing areas in the local industry, the experts say.

"We're producing nurses, but also nurses who are going to ultimately become leaders and teachers, and some of them could potentially become faculty and administrators as well," said Mary Boland, UH dean of nursing.

The students will spend the 12 months in intensive classroom and clinical environments, Boland said. At the end of the year, the students should be ready to pass an exam qualifying them to work as nurses in a hospital. But they won't be graduated, Boland said. Instead, the students will then spend two more years learning a speciality such as geriatric or pediatric care, most likely while working part-time in the field.

Traditionally, a student pursuing a degree in advanced nursing would need to complete a minimum of five years of school, Boland said.

When the program was first announced, more than 100 potential students expressed interest. The final 30 were culled from 60 applications, Boland said. All but about three are from Hawai'i and intend to practice here, she said.

"We're very pleased about that," she said. "There's so much interest in nursing here and so few opportunities to come in." Among the group are English and accounting majors.

Local healthcare officials believe the nursing crisis is just beginning. The Hawai'i State Center for Nursing last year reported that it believes the state was short about 858 nurses in 2005. The group projected that shortage would grow to 1,447 in 2010, 2,120 by 2015 and 2,669 by 2020.

"Most of the people in nursing at this point are going to be retiring within the next 10 years or so," Boland said. "Even in Hawai'i, less than 10 percent of the nurses are under 30. So we've got to get some people out there working and in at least their early stages of leadership."

Richard Maiers, president and chief executive of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, said he has worked with the university and several member hospitals to provide clinical sites for the students to gain training.

"Any effort that can help us increase the workforce opportunities here are sorely needed," Maiers said. "Certainly, we are short of nurses across the state in both acute and even long-term care settings."

Maiers said his organization also believes there are more than 300 students who are turned away from the state's various nursing programs each year. "There's just no faculty to teach them," he said.

Cindy Kamikawa, vice president of nursing and chief nursing officer at The Queen's Medical Center, said one of her managers helped in the interviewing of candidates for the new master's entry program.

At her own campus, more than 100 nursing positions in different areas — just under 10 percent of all nursing positions— are unfilled. The medical center has done some recruiting on the Mainland, particularly for specialty care positions, Kamikawa said.

The other part of the equation is figuring out different ways to retain nurses on staff who are thinking of retiring, she said.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.