There is a gap between the Big Country's population and the number of people trained to care for it. Healthcare workforce shortages in rural and smaller Texas markets are not a new problem, but they are a growing one. The nurses, technicians, and clinicians that communities like Abilene depend on have to come from somewhere. That somewhere, increasingly, is local, and it starts young.

The Next Stop Nursing Camp

That is the idea behind the Next Stop Nursing Camp, which TTUHSC School of Nursing in Abilene hosted for the first time in June 2026. 60 high school students from across the Big Country attended the free event, the first of its kind at TTUHSC Abilene. The camp was led by the School of Nursing's Regional Dean, Heather Guest, and built around a clear mission: show students what nursing looks like before they ever step into a program, and let them feel what the work actually involves rather than just reading about it in a class.

The day was built around hands-on simulation, which is the right approach for this kind of introduction. Students rotated through CPR training, telehealth exercises, neonatal assessments, disaster response scenarios, and nursing-themed escape rooms. Each of those activities is designed around a different dimension of nursing: the physical, the technical, the urgent, and the collaborative. CPR is something you can learn in a classroom, but doing it builds a muscle memory that reading cannot replicate. A telehealth scenario introduces students to the reality that modern nursing happens over screens as well as at bedsides. A disaster response drill puts students in situations where judgment and teamwork matter, not just knowledge. The escape rooms are the kind of active learning that keeps a high school student engaged long enough to absorb something.

Keeping Big Country Students in the Big Country

The 60 students who attended came from across the Big Country, which is exactly the population this camp was designed to reach. Rural communities and smaller West Texas towns face a specific healthcare challenge. It is not only that they have fewer providers. It is that students who grow up in these communities often move away for education and never come back. When a student from a Big Country town attends TTUHSC Abilene rather than relocating to a major metro program, they are far more likely to stay and work in the region after graduation. That pattern is documented in TTUHSC Abilene's own enrollment data: approximately 25% of students in the nursing program come from the Big Country. Those graduates tend to remain in the area. The camp's goal, in part, is to grow that 25%.

The TTUHSC School of Nursing at 1674 Pine Street enrolls approximately 75 students per semester in a program that can be completed in 16 months after prerequisites are satisfied. That is a meaningful data point for a high school junior or senior sitting in a nursing camp for the first time. Sixteen months is not a decade of professional school. It is a realistic timeline for a student who can see a clear path from where they are today to a stable career that serves their own community. The camp put that timeline in front of 60 students who may not have known how close a nursing career actually was.

Why Local Training Matters

For parents in the Big Country, this camp matters in a practical way. Healthcare access in this region depends on training people locally. When a young person from Abilene or from a smaller Big Country town attends a free event that introduces them to nursing at a facility within driving distance of home, the odds that they eventually enroll in a local program and stay to work in the region go up. That is not a small thing. It is the mechanism by which a community maintains its own healthcare pipeline rather than depending on attracting workers from outside.

There is also a workforce economics dimension worth naming clearly. Texas faces a documented nursing shortage that runs statewide, and rural markets feel it more acutely than urban ones. The healthcare systems that serve Abilene and surrounding Big Country communities need a steady supply of locally trained nurses who understand this region's specific mix of patients, geography, and community character. A camp that plants that seed in 60 high school students, free of charge, is exactly the kind of upstream investment that pays off in working nurses rather than vacancy rates.

The first-ever qualifier attached to this camp is worth holding onto. TTUHSC Abilene did not start with a multi-year event with a waiting list. They started with 60 students, one summer day, and a room full of simulations. First-evers in a community tend to become second-evers and third-evers when the need is real and the execution works. The Big Country's healthcare needs are real. The execution, by all accounts, worked.

If you have a teenager who is thinking about a healthcare career, or if you know a family with a high schooler who might be looking for direction as back-to-school season starts, find out more about TTUHSC School of Nursing Abilene at 1674 Pine Street. The nursing program enrolls 75 students per semester in a 16-month program. Keep an eye out for the next Next Stop Nursing Camp, and let your neighbors know it exists.