Urban school, rural mission
Loyola Nursing faculty and students stand in front of a religious statue on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota during a March 2026 immersion, part of the school's new rural nursing initiative.
By Ashley Rowland
June 9, 2026
Makani Brocks grew up in a bustling, diverse neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side, not far from where she now attends the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing. She dreamed of building her nursing career in the city.
But a new initiative at Loyola Nursing has the junior considering a different path—one that would see her launch her career in some of the nation’s most remote locations, far from Chicago’s world-class hospitals and plentiful job opportunities for nurses.
Brocks is one of the first participants in the school’s Rural Health Care Nursing Scholars Program (RHCNSP), started last year with a $3.8 million, four-year federal grant to graduate more nurses ready to work in hard-to-fill rural positions.
The program provides specialized training for undergraduates in rural acute and long-term care. Starting in their sophomore year, students take part in workshops and other supplemental learning outside the regular nursing curriculum, including immersion trips to rural locations.
Brocks, who had never traveled anywhere more remote than Tuscon, Ariz., before joining RHCNSP, was intrigued by the possibility of gaining clinical experience outside an urban hospital.
“It seemed like a good opportunity to try something new,” she said.
In March, she traveled to South Dakota and Nebraska with the first Rural Health Care Nursing Scholars cohort for a spring break immersion, seeing firsthand how health care is provided in places with few residents and even fewer medical facilities.
In South Dakota, the students visited the medically underserved Pine Ridge Reservation, one of the country’s largest Native American reservations. In Gordon, Nebraska, population 1,500, they toured a tiny 25-bed critical access hospital, the federal designation for facilities located at least a 35-mile drive from another hospital.
Brocks said the entire week—which included hearing one nurse share the story of removing a bison horn from a patient’s side—was “eye-opening, in a good way.”
“I hadn’t realized that rural health care was its own specialty,” she said. “It’s a completely different work environment.”
Transformational experiences
RHCNSP is the expansion of Loyola Nursing’s annual service immersion to Pine Ridge, launched by Professor P. Ann Solari-Twadell nearly 10 years ago to introduce students to health care practice in geographically isolated locations. The reservation is one of the poorest in the country and many residents struggle with alcohol and drug addiction.
The immersions were eye-opening for students, even leading one 2022 Bachelor of Science in Nursing graduate to accept a job as a nurse at a Jesuit school in Pine Ridge.
Today, RHCNSP prepares students for the unique challenges of practicing in rural environments, from working independently to navigating between populations and specialties.
“A nurse working in a critical access hospital has to be a jack of all trades,” said Solari-Twadell. Within the course of a single shift, a rural nurse could “be in the ER, they could have a woman in labor, then they could have an older adult with a wound. They have to be able to do it all.”
She said nurses with the skills and willingness to work in isolated locations are in high demand, especially as more rural hospitals close due to dwindling federal funds. Yet few students know about those jobs, and relatively few nursing schools have offered training in rural health.
“If nursing schools aren’t including content about rural health or clinical experiences in rural areas, how are students even going to consider this as an area of practice?” she said.
A leadership role
RHCNSP is funded by a Health 草莓社区 and Services Administration grant that supports the school as it expands its rural partnerships and strengthens its expertise in rural health care.
“Our rural health initiative is significant for an urban school of nursing that has traditionally focused on educating nurses to work in urban and suburban areas,” said Dean Lorna Finnegan. “We know there’s a deficit of health care providers in rural areas, and we’re taking a leadership role in educating students to fill these vital positions.”
The grant allocates funding for Loyola Nursing faculty to create and pilot-test a rural nursing education program that can be replicated by nursing schools nationwide. To launch that effort, eight faculty took part in the spring RHCNSP immersion, and the school will host a conference this fall aimed at deepening faculty knowledge of rural health nursing practice and pedagogy.
Meanwhile, Loyola Nursing is expanding its clinical partnerships to more sites in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, and South Dakota, providing more opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience in rural health.
Associate Professor Jorgia Connor, assistant dean of Loyola Nursing’s prelicensure programs, said RHCNSP gives students more options for practice after graduation, as well as valuable experience working with underserved and indigenous populations.
Rural populations, she noted, often experience higher levels of poverty and poorer health, including chronic and preventable diseases, than their urban counterparts.
“These communities are often overlooked, and preparing nurses for practice there aligns directly with our Jesuit mission and values,” she said.
An eye on the future
RHCNSP has already generated significant student interest, with dozens of undergraduates applying to be part of the program in the 2026-27 academic year.
Brocks, who will mentor incoming RHCNSP students starting this fall, said the program has led her to consider working as a rural health care nurse for several years after graduation.
No matter where she decides to practice, she said her spring break experience in the Great Plains has made her a better nurse. In particular, the trip opened her eyes to the impact of non-medical factors like housing and access to transportation on patient health.
“It’s important for us as students to get a different perspective and acknowledge that one hospital and one setting might not be how it is for everybody,” she said. “This really prepared me to care for all kinds of patients, and I learned things I wouldn’t necessarily have learned in an urban setting.”