Page 42 - Healthcare News May/June 2022

40 Under Forty
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Roger St. Onge
Founder, MOVE Athletics; Age 32
Roger St. Onge is no stranger to physical challenges. A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, he served two deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While in the Marines, he developed a passion for helping others with their fitness.
“I was helping the Marines that weren’t passing their physical-fitness test or meeting the height and weight standard to be able to pass those standards and meet the requirements,” he explained, adding that this passion stayed with him after his service was over.
Indeed, while working toward his doctoral degree in
Students
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themselves if this was what they really wanted to do. Most all of them, though, answered in the affirmative. “Most of them looked on it as a challenge and said,
essentially, ‘I want to go help — this is why I wanted to be a nurse, to work in those areas where people are acutely ill,’” she said, adding that the overall experience, and the opportunities it provided for some to be on or near the front lines of the pandemic, will serve them well in their careers.
Course of Action
As noted earlier, those who stuck with it during COVID and persevered through its many challenges are being rewarded with a job market that is in some ways without precedence.
Indeed, healthcare facilities of all kinds are looking for nurses, wages have moved progressively higher, generous sign-on bonuses have become the norm, and providers are taking steps to try to accommodate nurses (and other healthcare professionals) and reduce levels of stress.
“It’s not just hospitals — everyone is looking for nurses,” said Rousseau. “Schools, long-term care facilities, homecare ... there’s just a huge need for nurses right now. Hospitals are paying higher rates of pay because they need to staff, which means that nurses in some of those other areas are moving into the hospitals because of the pay, which leaves vacancies in those other settings. It’s a challenging environ- ment for employers.”
Amy Brandt, dean of Health Sciences and Culinary Arts at Holyoke Community College, agreed, noting that most graduates of the school’s associates degree program had multiple job offers and positions lined up long before their nurse-pinning ceremony, and some found it in the emerg- ing field of travel nursing.
As the name suggests, these are nurses who travel from one assignment to the next as need dictates, often at wage rates higher than they could find if they settled on one place of employment.
“Overall, the field has become very broad,” she said. “And everyone is hiring; most of the hospitals across the country are short-staffed — we just haven’t been able to produce enough nursing graduates in the volume that is needed to meet current demand in the hospital setting as
physical therapy at American International College, he taught fitness classes in Springfield and competed in both CrossFit at the regional level and Olympic weightlifting.
It was during this time that St. Onge noticed there were many athletes and active adults who were having athletic aches and pains, or getting injuries that
were preventing them from exercising — and they weren’t getting any help.
So he made it his mission to get them that help.
“I felt like it was my responsibility to figure out a way to provide that service to the community because there was nowhere for people to get that help,” he said, adding that this mindset compelled him to pursue his doctorate. What he realized was that the standard route of physical therapy wasn’t necessarily the best route.
“Most of the care given in the insurance-driven world
well as the outpatient setting.”
Machuca told HCN that she had multiple job offers to
consider as she was wrapping up her studies, and eventu- ally chose HMC because of the opportunity it presented to “be involved in a hospital that is very much involved with the community.”
As for the colleges with nursing programs, COVID pre- sented learning opportunities and reality checks for them as well.
“We did have some good lessons learned through this,” said Rousseau. “When we did come back to campus, and
“
we did in that fall of 2020, most classes were still held re- motely, but the nursing courses — anything that had to do with practical learning skills, the learning-lab skills — we did those face-to-face but broke the class up into very small groups so we could keep social distancing.
“And while that was a huge amount of work for the faculty, because splitting that many people up meant run- ning the same class over and over and over again, it really facilitated learning for the students,” she went on. “So, we’re looking for ways to continue working in small groups when we’re doing those kinds of learning activities.”
Overall, the many challenges presented by COVID of- fered up a stern test, said Rousseau, and in passing it, there was a strong sense of accomplishment.
“Flexibility has been key, and nurses have always been flexible,” she told HCN. “But I don’t think the faculty real- ized how flexible they truly could be. They ran tutoring sessions and drop-in sessions at different hours of the night because we were able to use zoom links — that provided flexibility. There are many of these pieces that we’re trying to incorporate moving forward to support student success.”
Brandt agreed, noting that the biggest change brought about by COVID is in “instructional technology.”
“Instead of having only in-person lectures, we need to
is not designed to help people get better,” he said. “It’s designed to help overworked, burnt-out, underpaid therapists manage their time.”
St. Onge founded MOVE Athletics as an out-of-network practice that would operate in a manner best for the client. “We have a whole mini-gym in here so we can do literally
anything that anybody needs to do to get back to fitness and an active lifestyle without being limited by insurance,” he said.
Outside of work, he lives an active lifestyle and loves spending time with his two children.
“We’re either going on hikes or paddleboarding, or in the winter we’ll go snowboarding,” he said. “I’ll shoot hoops in the driveway with my son or take the dog for a 20-minute walk with my daughter ... just being outside with the kids and enjoying nature.”
It is clear that, whether inside or outside of work, St. Onge is passionate about playing an active role in his community.
— Elizabeth Sears
figure out how to be more flexible in how we deliver that lecture,” she explained. “Students want more flexibility, and to be honest, they need more flexibility, because you don’t see any students any more that are coming in with no responsibilities, that are fully supported by a two-parent household.
“A lot of our students are what we call non-traditional — they’re working moms and dads; they’re supporting an elderly member in their family ... all different kinds of combinations,” she went on. “And nursing school is very demanding on your time; I think students appreci-
A lot of our students are what we call non-traditional — they’re working moms and dads; they’re supporting an elderly member
in their family ... all different kinds of combinations. And nursing school is very demanding on your time; I think students appreciate, wherever possible, to have some of the instruction be online.”
ate, wherever possible, to have some of the instruction be online.”
The Bottom Line
As she talked about her job in the HMC emergency de- partment, which she started a week after getting her nurse’s pin, Machuca said she loved the pace of the work and that every day, almost every hour, is different.
Still, there was a period of adjustment.
“My first few days ... I was questioning everything. I was like, ‘what am I getting myself into — this is super over- whelming,” she recalled. “But it was just me going through a big change; I had been doing the same job for almost 10 years. I went from handling patients’ specimens to dealing directly with them. I feel like I should have been doing this sooner.”
Those sentiments are typical of most nursing graduates, even in a time that has been decidedly atypical.
This has been a time of change, of challenge, opportu- nity, and adjusting. Mostly, it’s been, as Konderwicz said, a reality check — in all ways, and for everyone involved. v
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