You can't recruit your way to a healthy hospital. On this episode of Healthcare That Makes You Proud, the presidents of UT Permian Basin and Midland College explain what it takes to build a workforce instead.
The short version
- Recruiting nurses to West Texas from Dallas or Austin rarely works, so Midland is building its own pipeline instead, starting in high school.
- Midland College runs a ladder from dual credit certifications through associate degree nursing, sonography and respiratory care.
- UT Permian Basin has just under 200 nursing students and posted a 100% NCLEX pass rate across its last four cohorts.
- Three UTPB master's programs are feeding the new Permian Basin Behavioral Health Center.
- Midland Health turns away roughly 80% of transfer requests from the region, and a 10-year study projects a need for about 145 more beds.
Why Recruiting Alone Doesn't Work Here
Stephen Bowerman opened the conversation with the problem that shapes everything else about staffing a hospital in West Texas.
“It's really hard, I've said many times, to recruit nurses to relocate from Dallas or San Antonio or Austin. We have to grow our own, and that starts in the Midland Independent School District.”
That premise is why the two guests were in the studio. Dr. Sandra Woodley has spent 30 years in higher education across five university and community college systems, the last nine as president of The University of Texas Permian Basin. Dr. Damon Kennedy has spent nearly his entire career at Midland College, where he was once a student, and is heading into his fourth year as its president. He also holds two degrees from UTPB.
The Ladder Starts in High School
Kennedy described a pipeline that begins well before college. Midland College works with MISD and other area districts to train high school students in health sciences foundations, earning certified nursing assistant, EKG technician and phlebotomy credentials through dual credit. Those students then have a path into the college's associate degree nursing program, along with sonography, respiratory care and a new behavioral health offering.
“We know in our area that we have to grow our own, and so we think it's really important to grab students as early as we possibly can.”
Dr. Damon Kennedy, president, Midland College
The practical effect is that Midland Health can hire phlebotomists and radiology technicians who are already trained, already local, and already know the community they're serving.
UTPB: Nursing, Counseling, and a Turned Corner
On the university side, Woodley pointed to just under 200 students in UTPB's nursing program and a 100% NCLEX pass rate across the last four cohorts. She did not present that as a straight line.
“We came a long way, baby. Had a little issue there for a while.” When Bowerman offered that they had turned a corner, her answer was simply: “We have turned the corner.”
Dr. Sandra Woodley, president, The University of Texas Permian Basin
Woodley also described three master's programs built to serve the new Permian Basin Behavioral Health Center: psychology counselors, education counselors and social work counselors. More broadly, UTPB is reviewing all of its roughly 85 degree programs against what the region actually needs, with recent investments from PSP and the Scharbauer Foundation supporting counseling, nursing and health sciences.
What the Permian Basin Actually Asked For
Bowerman recounted putting the question to an oil field executive: what does the region really need?
“What I heard him say was, we can bring the engineers. What we really need you to bring more of is nurses, doctors, teachers, police officers, firemen. We need infrastructure is what we need.”
That framing widened the conversation past health care, into IT, law enforcement and administration, and into the things that decide whether trained people stay. Child care came up as workforce infrastructure rather than a benefit: Midland College has long run the Great House Children's Center on its main campus, a second location at Manor Park, and launched a pre-K academy in 2018.
The Numbers Driving the Urgency
Bowerman closed with why the timeline matters. Midland Health is the largest health care provider in the Permian Basin, serving roughly 34% of patients across the region.
“We've turned away about 80% of the transfer requests that come in from the surrounding region. They call and say, ‘We have a patient we can't take care of here. We need to transfer them to Midland.' We tell them we can't take them because we don't have enough beds.”
A newly completed 10-year market assessment projects a need for about 145 additional beds at Midland Health within a decade, along with more operating rooms and additional providers. Every one of those beds needs people beside it, which is the argument the entire episode is built on.
Mentioned in this episode
Dr. Sandra WoodleyPresident, The University of Texas Permian Basin. Thirty years in higher education across five systems, nine of them as president at UTPB.
Dr. Damon KennedyPresident, Midland College. A former Midland College student and UTPB graduate, entering his fourth year as president.
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