SCC cultivating new nurses

With graduation this week, staff within the nursing program at Sampson Community College will be handing out associate nursing degrees to 47 students, who will then take the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) to become registered nurses.

According to Dr. Stephanie Spring, the department chair/program director for SCC”s Nursing Program, there are “tentatively 60 seats” in the Associate Degree Nursing Program. However, this fall, the program will welcome 61 new students looking to get a degree in nursing and 17 students going through the Practical Nursing Program.

As of right now, there are nine students in the Practical Nursing (PN) program, which will end in July.

Springs noted that the practical nursing program is three semesters long, compared to the five semesters that ADN students have to work through. She said students will sometimes choose to do the PN course because “it’s a shorter amount of time” and “they’re not sure if nursing is what they want to do, but they think they do.

“Our PN program fluctuates every year,” Springs continued. “Some years we have an abundance of them. Some years, it’s 30. It can be as low as 10.”

Students who went through the PN program are also able to come back and study in the ADN program through an advanced placement program. In that case, they can come in during the summer and do three semesters before they graduate with an associate degree in the spring.

One of the students who did that was Chassidy Hunt, who is now graduating on Thursday.

Hunt said coming back to the program was a change, the biggest being the clinical setting since “you can do a little more as an RN.

“We got to experience different things, different skills, like in the hospital setting,” Hunt said.

She said another difference was that the NCLEX changed in the two years since she had graduated as a PN.

“We do more things, like case studies,” Hunt explained. “It’s exciting to take what we learn in class and be able to put it into the work field. So just being able to say, ‘OK, you know, I learned about this disease process in class, so now I know how to take care of this patient.’”

And students are able to do that right on the campus of SCC through the simulation lab.

That lab is located on the second floor of the Technology Building on campus. It’s a relatively small room with four life-like mannequins dressed like patients. Two of them are infants, while the other two can simulate anyone between the ages of a young adult and an elderly patient. There are both male and female mannequins, and all of the mannequins have been upgraded to be the most realistic that they could be. This could include something as drastic as amputated limbs or something as simple as tattoos.

The real magic, though, happens in a room hidden behind a two-way mirror. In this room, an instructor is able to sit at the computer system controlling all of the mannequins and making them mimic real-world issues that any of the students could face one day. These include things like crying, coughing or even seizing.

“They could be perfectly fine and then start seizing,” Springs said about the mannequins. “We do this so we can get them familiar with the type of things they need to be looking for before we get into that actual real-world setting.”

Springs said the program also has a partnership with Davidson Regional, where students will get to work with a mannequin that simulates a pregnant woman giving birth and the students will be able to “actually birth a baby.”

Overall, students in the program feel as if the instructors not only help them pass the class, but also work with them to make them the best that they can be so that when they graduate they will become great nurses.

“You definitely will get what you need to be successful in the world, in the workforce,” Hunt said, “and to be confident in your knowledge. Like, they definitely make sure that you know what you’re supposed to know.”

Hunt said that even people in the community will tell them that “we know you’re going to be good” because they graduated from Sampson.