Guest column: Nevada can no longer afford to import its medical professionals from other states

By Dr. Dean Polce

Tuesday, June 16, 2026 | 2 a.m.

When I arrived in Nevada in 2008, I came to build a career in anesthesiology in a state that was, even then, working hard to meet the healthcare needs of a fast-growing population. I have watched this state evolve in remarkable ways, but one critical challenge is producing and retaining enough healthcare professionals to care for its residents — and Nevada has not been able to catch up.

That is why U.S. Anesthesia Partners (USAP) is joining Nova Southeastern University on Wednesday in the opening of its NSU Health Nevada Campus in Henderson. It is not a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the ceremonial sense, but a declaration that the status quo is unacceptable, and that institutions are willing to invest in changing it.

The numbers tell a sobering story. Nevada currently ranks 45th in the nation for active physicians per capita, with roughly 218 doctors for every 100,000 residents, well below the national average of 272. A 2025 report from the UNR School of Medicine found that the state would need more than 2,300 additional physicians simply to reach the national average. Nearly two-thirds of Nevadans live in areas the federal government has designated as having a shortage of primary care providers. Most strikingly, according to the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities, more than 91% of Nevadans live in a designated mental health professional shortage area.

This is not a new problem. It is a worsening one. And it does not fix itself without deliberate, institutional commitment.

As the nation's largest educator of healthcare professionals, Nova Southeastern University (NSU) has built healthcare pipelines in communities that need them. The new NSU Health location will open anesthesiology assistant, physician assistant and respiratory therapy professional education programs in the months ahead.

SAP Nevada is one of NSU's first collaborators at the new campus, partnering to train Certified Anesthesiologist Assistants (CAAs) who will enter clinical practice ready to improve access to surgical anesthesia care across the region.

Training CAAs in Nevada means they are more likely to build their careers here and be part of the healthcare community.

This reflects a philosophy that USAP Nevada has long held: The solution to Nevada's healthcare shortage has to be locally grown, not imported. That is why our colleague Dr. Ryan Hafen, an anesthesiologist with USAP Nevada and program director for HCA Sunrise Health's anesthesiology residency, the only anesthesiology residency in the state, has devoted enormous energy to Match Day, the annual process by which graduating medical students are placed in residency programs. The data are unambiguous: Physicians train where they end up practicing.

The program at NSU Health Nevada will enroll its first class of 26 future CAAs with their White Coat ceremony Thursday, significantly increasing the scale and scope of high-quality, caring anesthesia clinicians who will be educated here in Nevada.

Representing another leg of the anesthesia clinician stool are Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs). In fall 2025, the UNLV School of Nursing welcomed its inaugural cohort of 16 student registered nurse anesthetists (SRNAs) into its newly launched Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist track.

A year earlier, Roseman University of Health Sciences College of Nursing in Henderson launched the state's first Doctor of Nursing Practice in Nurse Anesthesia (DNPNA) program, welcoming its inaugural cohort in July 2024 after receiving initial accreditation. USAP Nevada has committed to training students at both schools once they begin their clinical rotations.

We work across facilities in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, and we see the consequences of the healthcare workforce shortage in real terms, wait times, coverage gaps and the complexity of building anesthesia teams capable of serving a community of more than 2 million people. The opening of NSU Health's Nevada campus is one of the most significant steps I have seen in my time here toward actually addressing this structural problem.

Healthcare access in Nevada is not a government, hospital or insurance problem alone. It is a community problem, and it demands community solutions.

Dr. Dean Polce is a fellowship-trained anesthesiologist specializing in cardiothoracic anesthesia with U.S. Anesthesia Partners of Nevada. He serves on USA’s board of directors and clinical operations committee.