Page 18 - HealthcareNews Jan_Feb 2021

HEALTHCARE WORKFORCE CONT’D
TSicket to Anywhere
UMass Amherst Helps Speed Newly Graduated Nurses to the Bedside
erena Sarage, a native of South Hadley, has so I could get this opportunity,” said Sarage, who has realized her two-pronged dream of moving been hired to work at UCHealth University of Colo- to Colorado and joining the heroic efforts rado Hospital in Aurora in one of the top-ranking
of the nursing workforce during a once-in-a-century orthopedic units in the nation. “If the graduation date
pandemic.
Similarly, Melissa Petersen, who grew up in Maine,
has been hired as a newly graduated nurse into a resi- dency program to care for seriously ill cardiac patients at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.
Their quick entry into the nursing field at a time when nurses are desperately needed was made pos- sible by a UMass Amherst request to move up their formal graduation date one month, to Jan. 1, so they could qualify to schedule the National Council Li- censure Examination (NCLEX) to apply for licensure as a registered nurse. UMass Amherst’s request to accommodate nursing graduates moving out of state was approved by Marty Meehan, president of the five- campus UMass system.
Nursing graduates in Massachusetts seeking employment in the Bay State were already in a posi- tion to move quickly into the workforce. An earlier graduation date was not significant to them because the Commonwealth allows them to take the NCLEX with an official transcript alone, which was available on Dec. 14.
As a result of this accommodation for out-of-state employment, which was also made last year for UMass Medical School graduates, fall semester gradu- ates from the UMass Amherst accelerated bachelor
of science in nursing program already are working or poised to start high-demand hospital jobs across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. The acceler- ated nursing-degree program, designed for students who already have an undergraduate degree, takes 17 months to complete and wraps up in the fall semester, which this year ended earlier than usual due to the pandemic schedule.
“Because of the change with the conferral date, I was able to take the NCLEX sooner and apply in time
wasn’t changed, I honestly don’t think I’d be here, so I’m super thankful for that. My heart was set on this hospital.”
intake work with patients,” Petersen said. “I saw what the nurses were doing — talking with patients about symptoms, doing the medical histories — and realized I wanted to do that instead.”
She completed her nursing internship at Bay- state Medical Center, working on the neurological
Along with other students heading out
of state, Sarage, who earned her first bach- elor’s degree at UMass Amherst in public health, and Petersen ap- proached nursing lead- ers for help, including Allison Vorderstrasse, dean of Nursing.
“
work and requirements and the actual conferral of the degree.”
“This was an issue
this year in particular because the semester ended ear- lier than normal and there was a larger lapse of time between finishing their course work and requirements and the actual conferral of the degree,” Vorderstrasse explained. “Some students had lined up potential
jobs or residencies and were feeling the pressure to get their NCLEX exam completed so they could start those positions.”
Finding a location to take the proctored exam was more challenging than usual as well, because of pandemic restrictions that limit the testing centers’ capacity, the dean added.
Petersen decided to return to college for a nursing degree at UMass Amherst after working as a medi-
cal assistant in a healthcare center in Burlington, Vt., where she had earned her first degree, in anthropol- ogy, from the University of Vermont and worked as an EMT. She had planned to go to medical school or become a physician assistant but discovered at the Burlington clinic that she preferred the greater patient interaction of nursing.
“I was doing blood draws, giving vaccines, doing
stepdown unit, where seriously ill patients who had been in the intensive-care unit were sent to continue treatment under close watch.
Petersen was eager to start her nursing career as soon as possible for obvious reasons. As she noted, “we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and there’s a nursing shortage.” Without the early confer- ral of her degree, she would not have been able to get in the queue to take the NCLEX in time to start the job she was offered.
In her nurse residency position on Vanderbilt Medical Center’s cardiac stepdown unit, she’ll be working with patients recovering from severe cardiac conditions. “I enjoy the care that’s delivered on that kind of floor because there’s a lot of patient interac- tion while you still are providing a high level of care,” says Petersen, who sought work in Nashville because her longtime boyfriend is in graduate school there. “Luckily, with nursing, you can pretty much go any- where.” v
This was an issue this year in particular because the semester ended earlier than normal and there was
a larger lapse of time between finishing their course
Preschool
Continued from page 17
“We spent a lot of time talking about
the flexibility it requires to teach online,” Dalenta said. “We talked about how marketable it makes them in an uncertain future. Working with preschoolers online is not an easy thing to do.”
For the fall semester, though, Dalenta knew the STCC virtual preschool could not be replicated. While it was a rich and successful summer experience, it was not a sustainable model. It also lacked something important to all teachers in training: the opportunity to work with experienced
teachers, who provide grounding for student teachers and model teaching strate- gies. They needed mentors.
Dalenta reached out to the Holyoke Chi- copee Springfield Head Start program, long a placement for STCC practicum students.
Mahera Chiarizo, HCS Head Start’s director of Education, was eager to team up with Dalenta to create a good learning experience for STCC students in pandemic conditions.
“This was a first for all of us, doing some- thing remotely,” Chiarizo said. “With the right ideas and motivation, it became a very successful partnership.”
Chiarizo said the ongoing connection between STCC and Head Start has been a fruitful two-way street for many years.
“This is a pipeline for employment,” she said. “We really look at these partnerships as an opportunity to grow the field.”
Relying on the technology platform ClassDojo, which is used by Springfield public schools, STCC students were able to join their mentor teachers for virtual parent meetings, lesson planning, teaching, even taking advantage of professional- development opportunities presented to Springfield teachers.
Though classes were taught remotely, the practicum sought to replicate typi-
cal student-teaching experience in other ways — for example, starting off with a small assignment and gradually building up to increasing amounts of responsibility around both planning and teaching. And
just as they do with in-person practicum placements, students are encouraged by their mentor teachers to reflect on what worked well with a given lesson, what they might have done differently, and what they learned from the experience.
“It’s the same approach as if they were in the classroom, but it’s virtual,” Chiarizo said.
While teaching preschoolers via com- puter is not easy, Dalenta believes the prin- ciples in which student teachers need to ground themselves are enduring, whether in person, on ClassDojo, or via any other technology platform.
“The fundamentals of good teaching pedagogy,” she said, “will always be the same until the end of time.” v
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