Now more than ever, there is a critical demand for healthcare professionals — across all disciplines.
Gwynedd Mercy University is meeting this need head on — by following in the footsteps of its founders, the Sisters of Mercy, whose “get it done” mentality has impacted the institution and its “Distinctive Mercy Graduates” for more than 75 years.
Frances M. Maguire ’55 Healthcare Innovation Center
The Frances M. Maguire ’55 Healthcare Innovation Center (HIC) will prepare students to address the healthcare needs of today and tomorrow, with the goal of improving access and equity for all. Made possible by a $10 million transformational gift by The Maguire Foundation, this state-of-the-art facility will feature large classroom spaces, nine skills labs, and 15 simulation rooms designed to teach students how to treat the whole patient with a compassionate and mercy-filled mindset.
Set to open in Fall 2025, the Frances M. Maguire ’55 HIC will be a space of interprofessional work, where students across many majors can collaborate to gain real-world experience. Watch the video below to see the building progress made so far.
Innovative Programs
GMercyU offers 17 programs in the health professions, including nursing, medical laboratory science, occupational therapy, and radiation therapy, to name a few. These programs prepare students for a wide array of careers, including 14 listed on the U.S. News & World Report Best Healthcare Jobs of 2025.
These programs not only prepare graduates to enter the workforce immediately, but are recognized for their innovative approach to providing exceptional patient care.
GMercyU’s Respiratory Care program, for example, is one of 10 recipients across 466 respiratory care programs in the nation to receive the Apex Award. Also, it’s the only program in Pennsylvania, and one of only five in the country, to receive both the Apex Award and the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care’s (CoARC) Distinguished RRT Credentialing Success Award.
GMercyU’s Medical Laboratory Science program boasts a 100-percent job placement, and its Radiation Therapy program was the first in the Philadelphia area to offer a JRCERT-accredited B.S. in Radiation Therapy.
In addition to these programs, GMercyU continues to introduce new programs to meet the demands of the workforce. Last fall, its M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology program launched, along with a one-year Speech-Language Pathology Prerequisite (SLPP) program, designed for college graduates who wish to work in a rapidly growing career that serves people of all ages. After completion of the SLPP program, students are eligible for entry into GMercyU’s Master of Speech-Language Pathology (MSSLP) program.
Set to launch in fall 2025, GMercyU’s Exercise Science program is the newest addition to campus, designed to prepare students for a career in fitness, sports medicine, rehabilitation, wellness coaching, and other health-related roles. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth for athletic trainers is expected to increase by 14 percent through 2032, more than four times the national average, and the demand for exercise physiologists is projected to increase by nine percent through 2032, more than three times the national average.
GMercyU also offers programs in biology, social work, psychology, counseling, and public health, providing additional pathways for students to make a difference in the lives of others. GMercyU’s program in business, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity allow students to meet growing healthcare needs without being a front-lines caregiver.
Health System Partnerships
To better prepare compassionate healthcare professionals, GMercyU has partnered with multiple health systems to meet the healthcare job demands and make the required education more affordable. GMercyU Nursing students have the opportunity to have between $25,000-$40,000 of their education loans repaid by the university’s partners in exchange for a work commitment. Current partners include:
GMercyU’s Respiratory Care program has partnered with St. Luke University’s Health Network to provide generous scholarship and other tuition funding (up to $100,000), mentoring from St. Luke’s, and guaranteed employment at St. Luke’s upon graduation.
Real-World Learning Opportunities
At GMercyU, all students, including Nursing and Health Professions students, have countless opportunities to gain hands-on experience through real-world learning experiences.
In additional to clinical experiences at dozens of area healthcare systems, Nursing majors, for example, have the unique opportunity to study abroad for a three-week, summer program at the University of Limerick in Ireland. GMercyU is one of the only universities in the area to offer undergraduate nursing students the opportunity study abroad and earn credits.
GMercyU’s Dedicated Education Unit is designed to assist senior-level nursing students with the transition from student to entry-level registered nurse by partnering them with an experienced registered nurse mentor at one of 20 participating hospitals. For a total of 136 hours, selected students work alongside their mentor in 12-hour shifts, beginning with patient care, progress to administering medications, and eventually take full charge of patients.
GMercyU Nursing and Health Professions students benefit from a wide range of state-of-the-art technology — including simulation manikins, Anatomage Table, Virtual Environment for Radiotherapy Teaching (VERT), and ASL-5000 lung simulator — to build their skills and confidence before entering the workforce. Just recently, the Respiratory Care program received a generous donation from Boehringer Laboratories to provide suction regulators for learning use.
Healthcare is one of the fastest-growing and most diverse areas of need in the U.S. and around the world. It has a huge impact on the quality of life of individuals, families, and communities. GMercyU’s holistic approach to healthcare education prepares students to meet these needs with compassion and a commitment to improving access to high-quality care in the Mercy tradition for all people.
