Dr. Susan Reeves ’88, dean of the Colby-Sawyer College School of Nursing and Health Professions and Gladys A. Burrows Distinguished Professor of Nursing, has been appointed to Health Care Workforce, a commission created by Gov. Maggie Hassan to address New Hampshire’s shortage of health care professionals.

“New Hampshire is facing a healthcare workforce shortage in fields ranging from direct care workers to pediatric nurses to psychologists,” said Gov. Hassan in a statement. The shortage “is increasingly threatening our ability to meet the health care needs of our citizens and making it harder to provide home- and community-based care to New Hampshire residents.”

The commission brings together 15 experts to work toward solving these long- and short-term problems. They will report regularly to Gov. Hassan before submitting a final report in December.

Dean Reeves, who said it was an honor to serve on the Governor’s commission, notes that if not addressed, the workforce shortage will have serious implications. “We must reevaluate and improve our systems now so that we can be prepared to meet the future health care needs of our population,” she said.

In her leadership role at Colby-Sawyer’s School of Health Professions, Dean Reeves has a proven track record of educating top-notch health care students. Since joining the faculty in 2007, she has strengthened a 30-year affiliation with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), which considers the Colby-Sawyer curriculum its own undergraduate nursing program. With a five-year, first-time average NCLEX pass rate of 96 percent, Colby-Sawyer nursing students consistently exceed state and national averages. One hundred percent of the responding nursing students in Colby-Sawyer’s Class of 2015 (the most recent data available) reported employment.

“Employment opportunities for Colby-Sawyer nursing graduates remain strong, particularly at our partner institution, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center,” said Dean Reeves. “DHMC hires our graduates because of the significant quality of their classroom and clinical education as well as their familiarity with the organization.”

Dean Reeves held a variety of leadership positions at DHMC for 35 years and retired from that organization in 2014. She earned her nursing diploma from Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in 1980. She holds a B.S. with a major in nursing from Colby-Sawyer College, an M.S. with a major in nursing administration from the University of New Hampshire and an Ed.D. from the University of Vermont. She is a resident of New London and chair of the New London Hospital Board of Trustees.

Read the Governor’s Executive Order at http://governor.nh.gov/media/news/2016/pr-2016-04-29-health-care-workforce.htmb.