Jill Chao estimates she has delivered nearly 1,000 babies in her lifetime.

“I look out my door, and I see five,” she estimates with a laugh.

An Albert Lea High School graduate, Chao has made the transition from nursing to midwifery and now: educator.

Chao began this semester as one of eight nursing instructors at Riverland Community College.

“I started my career as a regular nurse,” she said.

From cardiac to cancer to labor delivery, Chao, a married mother of two daughters, has worked in many fields of nursing in her 22 years in the profession.

Seeking advanced education, Chao received federal funding to obtain a master’s degree in midwifery from the University of Minnesota. She then moved to Austin 12 years ago to work as a midwife at Austin Medical Center.

“As a nurse midwife, I practice with the idea that pregnancy is ‘normal,’ ” she said. “I think sometimes the medical view is that pregnancy is ‘abnormal.’ ”

When the chance to teach in a nursing program this year opened at RCC, she took it.

“I think the opportunity was there to learn something new,” she said. “The nice thing about nursing is you can take it so many places in your career.”

There are 70 first-year students and 73 in their second year of RCC’s nursing program, 10 of whom are CPNs seeking their RN licensure. The college offers a two-year associate’s degree for registered nurse and a one-year degree for licensed practical nurse. Before graduation, students must participate in clinicals at a clinic or hospital, where they receive training under an instructor.

Some fields of nursing, like midwifery, anesthesia, management and education, require a bachelor’s degree.

Riverland is in the second year of its Nursing Pathway Program, which allows for a seamless transition between LPN and RN licensure.

“It will encourage more to go into the RN program,” Chao said.

For a nurse, becoming an RN expands the “flexibility of where you can work and what you can do,” Chao said.

“RNs can do more for a patient.”

Chao said teaching nursing is a much different career itself, but she enjoys it.

“So far, it gets better every day,” she said. “No one calls me at 3 in the morning.”

Nursing faculty, as well as nurses in general, will soon be in high demand, Chao said.

“There is an expected shortage of nurses,” Chao said. “We will have a lot of nurses retiring. Many go on to get master’s (degrees) and specialized practices, which limits the those people who are in clinicals.”

The Minnesota Board of Nursing estimates the average age of nurses in the state is 43, Chao said. More men going into nursing, historically a profession labeled as a woman’s job.

“There are definitely fewer, but there are more men going into the program,” she said.

Chao explained that nursing is a very dynamic career, but that it “can be stressful.”

“It’s not just giving medications,” she said. “We play an important role in caring for patients.”

Scholarships and other aid are available for nursing students. For more information about the Riverland nursing program, visit the counselor’s office.