With nursing and physician shortages across the nation, one Southern Colorado university is trying to help not only its students but people in rural areas as well.

The graduate nursing program at Colorado State University Pueblo has agreed to help solve a primary care provider shortage in Custer County.

Students in the Acute Care and Family Nurse Practitioner program will be spending a portion of their required clinical hours in Westcliffe.

Nursing faculty say, this opportunity benefits everyone involved.

The community will receive an increased level of care, while the students will be supervised by the very teachers they are learning from.

The best part is, the exposure may lure some of the future Nurse Practitioners back to rural healthcare.

"The Nurse Practitioner is truly, ideally, situated to develop or utilize primary healthcare needs of the rural area," says Joe Franta, Graduate Nursing Program Coordinator and Nurse Practitioner.

Each of the teachers at Colorado State University Pueblo will take turns supervising in Westcliffe, while students complete a portion of the nearly six months of clinical hours required to graduate.